Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday:

75 Lihue, Kauai
78 Honolulu, Oahu
74 Molokai
78 Kahului, Maui
89 Kailua Kona
74 Hilo, Hawaii


Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops on Maui and the Big Island…as of 743pm Monday evening:

 

Kailua Kona – 79
Hana airport, Maui – 64


Haleakala Summit –   45 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 34 (13,000+ feet on the Big Island)


Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions.

 


Aloha Paragraphs


http://www.perfectdayshawaii.com/assets/CoupleSnorkelingKeal.jpg

Snorkeling off the Kona coast of the Big Island


Less windy – gradually easing up more over the next few days –
lasting through this week…into next week

Showers will fall mostly along the windward sides and
around the mountains…although elsewhere at times too –
drier along our leeward beaches for the most part

Small Craft Wind Advisory…coastal and channel
waters around parts of Maui County – and the Big
Island of Hawaii

High Surf Advisory…for east shores of Kauai, Oahu,
Molokai, Maui, and the the Big Island




The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions…as of Monday evening:

25  Port Allen, Kauai – NE
39  Oahu Forecast NWR, Oahu – NE
29  Molokai – ENE
42  Lanai – NE
35  Kahoolawe – NNE
32  Kapalua, Maui – NE
38  Kealakomo, Big Island – NW


Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands…as of Monday evening (545pm totals):

0.88  Kilohana, Kauai
0.27  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.17  Molokai
0.02  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.83  Puu Kukui, Maui
2.83  Island Dairy, Big Island


We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean. Here’s the latest NOAA satellite picture – the latest looping satellite image… and finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.


~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Winds will remain quite strong…with gradually lighter winds trades going forward. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean. Here’s a real-time wind profile of the central Pacific…focused on the Hawaiian Islands. ~~~ We see a strong, near 1040 millibar high pressure system to our northeast. At the same time we see the tail-end of a cold front to our east and southeast, with its parent low pressure system a relatively short distance to the northeast. The pressure gradient between the high pressure to the northeast, and low pressure to our east and northeast, is weakening. Our winds will be from the northeast…which will remain locally gusty today. They will ease up as we move into the middle of this week, becoming much less blustery than they have been lately.

Satellite imagery shows clouds over and around the islands…especially to our windward coasts and slopes. We see an area of brighter white clouds to the south and southeast of the islands…which is clipping about half of the Big Island at the time of this writing. The majority of the clouds in our area are banked-up along our windward sides. Here’s a looping radar image, showing generally light showers moving across the island chain…on the northeast trade wind flow. The bulk of these showers are concentrating their efforts best along the windward coasts and slopes…although not many at the moment. Looking at this larger satellite image, which is in the looping mode, we see the counterclockwise circulation of the low pressure system to our northeast. There’s lots of clouds around now, although our atmosphere is becoming less shower prone. We also see those high clouds shifting over the Big Island as we move into the night.

Our weather remains locally windy, and locally showery along our windward sides…which will be followed by a more normal trade wind weather pattern as we move through this week. The wind isn’t going to stop by any means, although we’re definitely past the peak of the recent strong wind event. As we move forward, the winds will gradually back down in strength, becoming moderately strong by later Tuesday into Wednesday. The air mass will gradually dry out too, taking us out of the wet showery period that we saw recently as well. The leeward sides in particular, will be in good shape, with lots of warm sunshine beaming down. I’ll be back again early Tuesday morning, I hope you have a good Monday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui, at the 3,100 foot elevation, at my upper Kula, Maui weather tower, the air temperature was a chilly 48.4 degrees at 6am on this Monday morning. It’s now almost 8am, and I just finished my weather work for the Pacific Disaster Center. It was a chilly morning up here, bottoming-out right around 48 degrees. There isn’t any wind here at the moment, with near calm conditions. The skies are clear, although I can see low clouds as I look towards the north shore, as well as a shallow bank of clouds capping the West Maui Mountains. As I was mentioning above, conditions will begin mellowing out today, with less wind and windward showers going forward.

~~~ It’s 1120am now, and 69.1 degrees here in Kula, under clear skies, and a very light breeze. I just got back from Pukalani, which is maybe 8-10 minutes down the mountain. I ran into drizzle and gusty winds about 5 minutes down the mountain, which increased as I got into Pukalani. It’s strange having it be so perfect here in Kula, and still gray and wet, and windy such a short ways away! It makes me appreciate how protected we are here at my place. I want to remind you again, that I’ll be going on vacation this Thursday, as I dodn’t want to take you by surprise. The updated daily forecasts for everywhere in the state will remain available in my absence.

~~~ And now we’re into the early afternoon, at 105pm, under clear blue skies, light breezes, and a perfect 70.7 degrees. You may wonder why I live in the Upcountry area here on Maui. It’s that I like cooler conditions, and appreciate greatly that it’s typically 10+ degrees cooler up here during the day…and not that unusual to have it be 20+ degrees cooler at night. That may sound rather strange for you folks who grew up in cold weather, and are here in the tropics to escape that. I spend the first 20 years of life at the beach in Southern California, and it just wasn’t stormy or cool enough for me, being the kind of weather geek that I am. So, when I went off to college, I went north, to find both of those missing realities…plus a couple of college degrees in the process.

~~~ It’s 5pm, under clear to partly cloudy skies, no wind, and a warm 71.1 degrees. I can see clouds over the West Maui Mountains, Wailuku, Kahului, and probably from there…all the way out the windward side to Hana. I would imagine that there could be some light showers or drizzle falling from those clouds locally. It’s only 73 down in Kahului, and 72 all the way out in Hana, so the big temperature difference we usually see between here in Kula, down to Kahului is absent today. Despite it being only 71, for some reason it feels more like 80 to me at the moment, it’s bordering on a bit too hot for my liking…at least in a feeling sense. Oh there, a light breeze just arrived, and it feels really good! Speaking of hot, did you notice that Kailua Kona had a high temperature of 89 degrees this afternoon…wow!


World-wide tropical cyclone activity:


Atlantic Ocean: The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th.
Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

Caribbean Sea:

Gulf of Mexico:

Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

Eastern Pacific: The Eastern Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15th through November 30th. Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.


Central Pacific Ocean: The Central Pacific hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th. Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)


North Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones


South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones

North and South Indian Oceans: There are no active tropical cyclonesInteresting:

Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)


Interesting: A dust induced monsoon in India – Another sign of our global connectedness has manifested itself in a new satellite analysis linking dust in North Africa and West Asia with stronger monsoons in India. The study shows that as airborne dust from North Africa and West Asia absorbs sunlight it warms the air and strengthens the eastern winds carrying moisture. The heavy laden air generates a monsoon rainfall about a week later in India thereby explaining one way that dust can affect the climate, filling in previously unknown details about the Earth system.


The study also shows that natural airborne particles can influence rainfall in unexpected ways, with changes in one location rapidly affecting weather thousands of miles away. The researchers analyzed satellite data and performed computer modeling of the region to tease out the role of dust on the Indian monsoon; they report March 16 in Nature Geoscience.


India relies heavily on its summer monsoon rains. “The difference between a monsoon flood year or a dry year is about 10 percent of the average summer rainfall in central India. Variations driven by dust may be strong enough to explain some of that year-to-year variation,” said climate scientist Phil Rasch of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.


Rasch, V. Vinoj of the Indian Institute of Technology Bhbaneswar, India, and their coauthors wanted to explore a correlation that appeared in satellite records: higher amounts of small particles called aerosols over North Africa, West Asia, and the Arabian Sea seemed to be connected to stronger rainfall over India around the same time. The team wanted to see if they could verify this and determine how those particles might affect rainfall.


To explore the connection, the team used a computer model called CAM5 and focused on the area. The model included manmade aerosols from pollution, and natural sea salt and dust aerosols. First, the team ran the model and noted a similar connection: more aerosols in the west meant more rainfall in the east. Then they systematically turned off the contribution of each aerosol type and looked to see if the connection remained.


Dust turned out to be the necessary ingredient. The condition that re-created stronger rainfall in India was the rise of dust in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.


To see how quickly dust worked, they ran short computer simulations with and without dust emissions. Without dust emissions, the atmospheric dust disappeared within a week compared to the simulation with dust emissions. Rainfall declined in central India as well. This indicated the effect happens over a short period of time.


But there was one more mystery, how did dust do this to rainfall? To explore possibilities, the team zoomed in on the regional conditions such as air temperature and water transport through the air.


Their likeliest possibility focused on the fact that dust can absorb sunlight that would normally reach the surface, warming the air instead. This warmer dust-laden air draws moist air from the tropics northward, and strengthens the prevailing winds that move moisture from the Arabian Sea into India, where it falls as rain.