Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday…along with the minimum temperatures:
84 – 68 Lihue, Kauai
84 – 68 Honolulu, Oahu
84 – 61 Molokai
87 – 63 Kahului, Maui (Record high for the day 89 degrees…back in 1977)
85 – 71 Kailua Kona
81 – 63 Hilo, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Sunday evening:
0.06 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.02 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.12 Kepuni, Maui
0.31 Piihonua, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Sunday evening:
14 Waimea Heights, Kauai
16 Wheeler AAF, Oahu
13 Molokai
18 Lanai
18 Kahoolawe
13 Kula 1, Maui
15 Pali 2, 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
Gusty winds from the west and south ahead of a cold front
passing down through the state today…followed by cool
gusty northerly winds, veering back to trades by mid-week,
bringing fair trade wind weather conditions for the
Thanksgiving holiday…into the weekend
High Surf Advisory…for north and west shores of Kauai, and
for north shores of Oahu, Molokai and Maui
Small Craft Wind Advisory…coastal and channel waters for the
entire state, except around the leeward waters of the Big Island
Wind Advisory…Big Island summits – 35-50 mph with gusts to
over 60 mph
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Our winds will be locally breezy ahead of a cold front…then cooler and stronger from the north in its wake. 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 moderately strong, near 1028 millibar high pressure system to the northeast, which is moving away towards the northeast. At the same time, we see a cold front located to the northwest, which is being pushed in our direction by a new near 1026 millibar high pressure system to the northwest. Our winds are generally quite light from the west through south, prompted by the approaching cold front. Stronger north winds will arrive in the wake of the front, bringing cooler weather for a couple of days. The trade winds should return by later Tuesday into Wednesday…continuing into next weekend.
Satellite imagery shows a comma-shaped cold frontal cloud band passing down through the state today. This cold front will arrive later tonight into Monday night, first on Kauai and then down the island chain Monday. Here’s the looping radar image showing light to moderately heavy showers, most of which are falling over the offshore waters at the time of this writing. As the trade winds take back over by mid-week, we’ll see a trade wind weather pattern settle back over us into next weekend. I’ll be back with updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Friday evening Film: This time around I’ll be seeing a film that has looked good to me for several months. My neighbors Jeff and Svetlana have asked me to see the new film Interstellar with them. We’ll go down together and have dinner at Whole Foods, and then take the short walk over to the theater. The synopsis: with time on Earth coming to an end, a team of explorers undertakes the most important mission in human history; traveling beyond this galaxy to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars. Among these stars include: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Cain, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, Leah Cairns, and Collette Wolf…along with many others. The critics are being fairly generous with their praise, and with some of my favorite actors and actresses onboard, I’m excited to see this action/adventure/science fiction and fantasy adventure! I’ll be sure to let you know what I thought…what we all thought Saturday morning. Jeff and Svetlana are both Astrophysicists, so it will be interesting to see what they thought in particular about this outer space excursion.
~~~ This film was awe inspiring, incredibly complex…and had a spiritual dimension filled with love. It was epic, no doubt about it, full of real human emotions that sparked deep thought, leaving me uplifted to the ceiling of the theater…and the deepest part of space as well. The special effects were spectacular, allowing me to feel the dramatic intimacy of both inner space…and outer space. When we got out of the film, we found my friend Dr. David Kern, with his girlfriend Nancy standing outside in an engaged conversation. We all stood together in what felt like a sort of trance, discussing the depth and breadth of this experience we’d just been through. As for a grade, I believe A grades were being discussed all around following this very long piece of work. Here’s the trailer for this film.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
>>> Atlantic Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
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
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: There are no active tropical cyclones
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: Can Volcanic Eruptions Slow Global Warming? – Small volcanic eruptions might eject more of an atmosphere-cooling gas into Earth’s upper atmosphere than previously thought, potentially contributing to the recent slowdown in global warming, according to a new study.
Scientists have long known that volcanoes can cool the atmosphere, mainly by means of sulfur dioxide gas that eruptions expel. Droplets of sulfuric acid that form when the gas combines with oxygen in the upper atmosphere can remain for many months, reflecting sunlight away from Earth and lowering temperatures. However, previous research had suggested that relatively minor eruptions—those in the lower half of a scale used to rate volcano “explosivity”—do not contribute much to this cooling phenomenon.
Now, new ground-, air- and satellite measurements show that small volcanic eruptions that occurred between 2000 and 2013 have deflected almost double the amount of solar radiation previously estimated. By knocking incoming solar energy back out into space, sulfuric acid particles from these recent eruptions could be responsible for decreasing global temperatures by 0.05 to 0.12 degrees Celsius (0.09 to 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2000, according to the new study accepted to Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
These new data could help to explain why increases in global temperatures have slowed over the past 15 years, a period dubbed the ‘global warming hiatus,’ according to the study’s authors.
The warmest year on record is 1998. After that, the steep climb in global temperatures observed over the 20th century appeared to level off. Scientists previously suggested that weak solar activity or heat uptake by the oceans could be responsible for this lull in temperature increases, but only recently have they thought minor volcanic eruptions might be a factor.
Climate projections typically don’t include the effect of volcanic eruptions, as these events are nearly impossible to predict, according to Alan Robock, a climatologist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., who was not involved in the study. Only large eruptions on the scale of the cataclysmic 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines, which ejected an estimated 20 million metric tons (44 billion pounds) of sulfur, were thought to impact global climate. But according to David Ridley, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and lead author of the new study, classic climate models weren’t adding up.
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