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

86  Lihue, Kauai
89  Honolulu, Oahu
86  Molokai
87  Kahului, Maui
88  Kailua Kona
84  Hilo, Hawaii

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

2.10  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.21  Mililani, Oahu
0.61  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
1.34  Puu Kukui, Maui
2.33  Piihonua, Big Island

The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Monday evening:

21  Port Allen, Kauai
38  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
28  Molokai
37  Lanai
33  Kahoolawe
29  Kapalua, Maui
35  PTA Keamuku, 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.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/tpac/ir4-animated.gif


http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg


http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif

We find heavy rain falling locally…mostly over the offshore
waters at the time of this writing


These rains and thunderstorms will gradually
diminish later today…turning  drier by mid-week


The trade winds will remain moderately strong and gusty…then
easing-up by mid-week


http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/tc_graphics/2014/graphics/CP022014W.gif

Tropical storm Ana remains active well east-southeast
of the islands…which will become a hurricane

Small Craft Wind Advisory…for gusty trade winds – windiest
coasts and channels around Maui County and the Big Island

Winter Weather Advisory…Big Island summits – until noon
today / accumulating snow / webcam view – with
snow piling up on the camera lens



~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~




Trade winds will remain moderately strong and gusty…then easing-up starting Wednesday. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a real-time wind profiler of the central Pacific. We find a dissipating high pressure system to the east-northeast, with a ridge extending a short ways west-southwest from its center. We have a new high pressure cell to the north…which will continue the trade wind flow. There’s the tail-end of a cold front stretching south and southwestward, into the area north of Hawaii. Finally, there’s a tropical storm named Ana located over the ocean to the east-southeast…which may move close to our islands late this week. 

Satellite imagery shows partly to mostly cloudy skies, with heavy rains and thunderstorms over the eastern side of the state…moving westward. Looking at this larger looping satellite image, it shows areas of thunderstorms and heavy showers over the islands from Oahu to the Big Island. Further from the islands, to the east-southeast, we see newly formed tropical storm 02C (Ana)…which has a counter-clockwise spin to it. Meanwhile, the radar image above shows moderate to heavy showers falling over the ocean, and over the islands in places too. These will be carried to our windward coasts and slopes on the trade winds…although will fall elsewhere at times too. The forecast continues to show these windward showers will be very generous, and become locally heavy in some places into the night…spreading to other parts of the islands into Tuesday. These showers and rain, with embedded thunderstorms, will bring increased rainfall, and cause flooding in some areas through tonight into Tuesday. Tropical Storm 02C may bring heavy rains to our islands this coming weekend or early next week…stay tuned. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above and below, I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you happen to be spending it, and enjoy the lightning flashes as well! Aloha for now…Glenn.


World-wide tropical cyclone activity:


>>> Atlantic Ocean:  Hurricane 08L (Gonzalo) remains active, located approximately 830 miles south of Bermuda…with sustained winds of near 110 mph…with higher gusts. Here’s a graphical track map…along with a satellite image – and what the computer models are showing

 
A broad area of low pressure located about 1200 miles east of the
Lesser Antilles continues to produce a large area of disorganized
showers and thunderstorms.  Although this system has become a
little better organized overall during the past few hours,
any further development of this system is expected to be slow to
occur due to strong upper-level winds.  The low is forecast to move
northwestward and then northward over the central tropical Atlantic
during the next several days

* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...10 percent 
* Formation chance through 5 days...low...20 percent


Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

>>> Caribbean Sea: There are no active tropical cyclones


>>> Gulf of Mexico: There are no active tropical cyclones


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

>>> Eastern Pacific: There are no active tropical cyclones


Cloudiness and showers remain limited in association with a broad
area of low pressure located a couple hundred miles south of the
coasts of Guatemala and southeastern Mexico. Environmental
conditions are expected to be conducive for gradual development of
this system during the next several days while the low moves slowly
west-northwestward or northwestward.

* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...10 percent 
* Formation chance through 5 days...medium...50 percent


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


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


>>> Central Pacific: Tropical Storm 02C (Ana) remains active, located approximately 895  miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii…with sustained winds of near 50 mph…with higher gusts. Here’s a graphical track map…along with a satellite image – and what the computer models are showing


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


>>> Northwest 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:  How did Icebergs reach Florida in the last Ice Age? – Using a first-of-its-kind, high-resolution numerical model to describe ocean circulation during the last ice age about 21,000 year ago, oceanographer Alan Condron of the University of Massachusetts Amherst has shown that icebergs and meltwater from the North American ice sheet would have regularly reached South Carolina and even southern Florida. The models are supported by the discovery of iceberg scour marks on the sea floor along the entire continental shelf.


Such a view of past meltwater and iceberg movement implies that the mechanisms of abrupt climate change are more complex than previously thought, Condron says. “Our study is the first to show that when the large ice sheet over North America known as the Laurentide ice sheet began to melt, icebergs calved into the sea around Hudson Bay and would have periodically drifted along the east coast of the United States as far south as Miami and the Bahamas in the Caribbean, a distance of more than 3,100 miles, about 5,000 kilometers.”


His work, conducted with Jenna Hill of Coastal Carolina University, is described in the current advance online issue of Nature Geosciences. “Determining how far south of the subpolar gyre icebergs and meltwater penetrated is vital for understanding the sensitivity of North Atlantic Deep Water formation and climate to past changes in high-latitude freshwater runoff,” the authors say.


Hill analyzed high-resolution images of the sea floor from Cape Hatteras to Florida and identified about 400 scour marks on the seabed that were formed by enormous icebergs plowing through mud on the sea floor. These characteristic grooves and pits were formed as icebergs moved into shallower water and their keels bumped and scraped along the ocean floor.


“The depth of the scours tells us that icebergs drifting to southern Florida were at least 1,000 feet, or 300 meters thick,” says Condron. “This is enormous. Such icebergs are only found off the coast of Greenland today.”


To investigate how icebergs might have drifted as far south as Florida, Condron simulated the release of a series of glacial meltwater floods in his high-resolution ocean circulation model at four different levels for two locations, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.