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

83  Lihue, Kauai
85  Honolulu, Oahu
84  Molokai
92  Kahului, Maui – record for the date was 94 degrees back in 1953
85  Kailua Kona
81  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 710pm Thursday evening:

 

Kahului, Maui – 82
Hana airport, Maui – 75


Haleakala Summit –   52 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 41 (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.travaasa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ReadersChoice.jpg
Hana, Maui


Our winds will be light, or a bit stronger in places, from the
south and southeast…into the weekend – followed by the
return of trade winds Monday

Look for localized afternoon showers over the interior
sections, and along the south and southeast sides of the
islands at times to – locally quite heavy in places

We’ll see heavier showers arriving later Friday into the
weekend… especially over Kauai and Oahu – with even
a possible thunderstorm forming – followed by
windward showers next week


The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions…as of Thursday evening:

12  Mana, Kauai – SE
15  Wheeler AAF, Oahu – SE
13  Molokai – SE
18  Lanai – NE
27  Kahoolawe – NE
13  Lipoa, Maui – SE
22  South Point, Big Island – NE


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

1.22  Kapahi, Kauai
1.56  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.06  Molokai
0.03  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
1.19  Hana airport, Maui
0.97  Pahala, 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 ~~~



Our winds will be arriving from the south to southeast, becoming light and variable this weekend…with the trade winds finally returning on Memorial Day. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a real-time wind profile of the central Pacific…focused on the Hawaiian Islands. ~~~ We see low pressure systems to our northwest, far north and northeast…along with a late season cold front stalled northwest of Kauai. We have a moderately strong high pressure system to our northeast…with a ridge extending southwest over the offshore waters north of the state. As a result of these weather features, our local winds will remain on the light side, although locally stronger in a few places from the south and southeast directions generally. The models are now showing the long lost trade winds returning by Monday…becoming quite breezy into the middle of next week.

Satellite imagery shows patches of low clouds over and around our island chain, and especially well to our south…with some higher clouds to the northwest of Kauai. Looking at this larger satellite image, we see those clouds most focused over the islands from Oahu down through Maui County for the most part. Meanwhile, we continue to see the stalled cold front to the northwest of Kauai. Here’s a looping radar image, showing generally light showers falling, most of which are riding up on the humid winds coming up from the deeper tropics…to our south and southeast.

We’ll see light south to southeast breezes continuing, keeping our atmosphere rather stagnant and muggy through Sunday. These breezes won’t be robust enough to clear our atmosphere of the haze we’ve been putting up with lately, and when they’re coming up from the southeast…will bring more volcanic haze our way. An upper level low pressure is forecast to move near or over the state later Friday into the weekend, which is expected to bring locally heavy rains and even thunderstorms to Kauai and perhaps Oahu. The eastern islands of Maui County and the Big Island are expected to be outside of this heavy rain area for the most part…although could find some locally heavy afternoon downpours as well. Looking further ahead, we’ll find strengthening trade winds picking up into the new week ahead, bringing wet weather to our windward sides through much of the work week. I’ll be back again early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Thursday 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 57.6 degrees at 615am on this Thursday morning. Skies were clear overhead, although I can see clouds elsewhere around Maui…and very little volcanic haze. There have been heavy rains falling out along the eastern side of the island, from Hana to Hamoa, including the Palikea Stream in the Haleakala National Park, the Oheo Gulch area, and the Pipiwai trail…making for hazardous conditions in that area of the island. Please be careful if you find yourself driving or hiking under those locally heavy showers! Update at 11am, the volcanic haze is rolling in again, and has become moderately heavy at the moment.

We’re into the early afternoon hours now, at 1225 pm, under increasingly cloudy skies, light winds, and an air temperature of 77 degrees. The vog conditions are doing nothing but getting thicker today, and are at least moderately heavy at this time.

It’s now early evening at 515pm, under cloudy skies, near calm winds, and an air temperature of 72.9 degrees. I can still see the West Maui Mountains from here in Kula, indicating that the vog is not thick…although remains moderately heavy at the time of this writing. The clouds tried to get deep enough to drop some showers this afternoon, although didn’t quite make it. I’m looking for substantially more afternoon showers here on the slopes of the Haleakala Crater over the next several days.

NOAA expects near-normal or above-normal Central Pacific hurricane season / For 2014, the outlook calls for a 40% chance of a near-normal season, a 40% chance of an above-normal season, and a 20% chance of a below-normal season. They expect 4 to 7 tropical cyclones to affect the central Pacific this season. An average season has 4-5 tropical cyclones, which include tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes.


This outlook is based upon the expectation of El Niño developing during the 2014 hurricane season. El Niño decreases the vertical wind shear over the tropical central Pacific, favoring the development of more and stronger tropical cyclones. Since 1995 the central Pacific has been in an era of low activity for hurricanes, but this pattern will be offset in 2014 by the impacts of El Niño.

This outlook is a general guide to the overall seasonal hurricane activity in the central Pacific and does not predict whether, where, when, or how many of these systems will affect Hawaii.


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: Tropical Storm Amanda remains active offshore well south of the Mexican coast. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, with a broad satellite picture of the northeastern Pacific…along with a close-up satellite image of this system. Here’s what the computer models are showing for this tropical storm.


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 begins on June 1st…and runs 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 cyclones

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


Interesting: Camelopardalid Meteor Shower – Coming to a circumpolar constellation near you: an all-new, never-before-seen, awkwardly named meteor shower that just might knock your astronomical socks off.


It’s called the Camelopardalid meteor shower, and, unlike annual showers such as the Perseids and Leonids that have been occurring for hundreds or thousands of years, it will occur for the first time the night of May 23 and early morning of May 24.


A meteor shower happens when the Earth passes through debris left in space by a comet (the Perseids, for example, are debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle); the debris, little chunks of rock and other material, burns up in the atmosphere to form what some people call shooting or falling stars.


The Camelopardalids will be debris from Comet 209P/LINEAR, a very dim comet that orbits the sun every five years; the comet was discovered in 2004 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project, a partnership of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, NASA and the U.S. Air Force.


But, while the Earth has been passing through Swift-Tuttle debris to create the Perseids for thousands of years (the first written account of the shower was in 36 A.D.), this will be the first time the Earth has passed through Comet 209P/LINEAR’s leftovers.


Meteor showers vary in intensity: Some produce more meteors than others, and some years a particular meteor shower is better than other years.


It all depends on how much debris the Earth passes through, and some astronomers are predicting that all of Comet 209P/LINEAR’s debris trails from 1803 through 1924 will intersect Earth’s orbit, so the Camelopardalid meteor shower will be a meteor storm producing hundreds of meteors per hour.


So, how good will it be?


“That’s always a good question, more so with this meteor shower because it’s the first time we’re seeing it,” said Rich Talcott, senior editor of Astronomy magazine. “Over the past 15 or 20 years, astronomers have done a very good job at figuring out, OK, here’s where the debris streams will lie. I’m thinking the odds are pretty good we’ll get something nice May 24.”


Meteor showers are named for the constellation from which the meteors seem to radiate; that point is known as the radiant, and radiant for the Camelopardalids will be the constellation Camelopardalis (the giraffe).


Camelopardalis is a circumpolar constellation, which means that, rather than rising moving from east to west across the night sky, it goes around Polaris, the North Star, so it’s up all night.


It’s also easy to find because it’s close to the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, two easily recognizable constellations. From Lee County’s latitude, 26 degrees, Polaris is 26 degrees above the horizon, which is good news for area Camelopardalid watchers, said Carol Stewart, astronomer at the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium.


“In Southwest Florida, we have an advantage over Northern latitudes because the meteors will come in at us from a lower altitude,” she said. “Those are called ‘Earth-grazers,’ and they’re longer-lasting and run farther across the sky.”

Aside from clouds, a meteor watcher’s worst enemy is a bright moon, which can wash out all but the brightest meteors.

On the night of May 23, however, the moon is not present, and it doesn’t rise until 3:41 a.m. May 24; when it does rise, it will be a waning crescent, so it won’t affect the meteor shower.


Astronomers predict peak activity for the shower will be from 2 to 4 a.m. May 24, but Stewart will be looking at a wider window.


“They could start as soon as it gets dark the night of the 23rd,” she said. “I’m going to go out and check every hour. We don’t know because this is the first time, and I don’t want to miss it.”