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

79 – 60  Lihue, Kauai
79 – 65  Honolulu, Oahu
77 – 57  Molokai AP
80 – 58  Kahului, Maui
80 – 65  Kailua Kona
81 – 64  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.01  Kilohana, Kauai
0.04  Poamoho, Oahu
0.02  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.00  Maui
0.01  Kahua Ranch, Big Island


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


14  Poipu, Kauai – SW
13  Kahuku Trng, Oahu – W
14  Molokai – SSW
12  Lanai – SW
09  Kahoolawe – NW
14  Kaupo Gap, Maui – SE
13  PTA Range 17, Big Island – NW


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/cpac/ir4.jpg
A weak cold front is stalled…not far to the north of the state

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg
Mostly clear to partly cloudy…scattered clouds offshore waters


http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
Limited light showers…at best



~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~


High Surf Advisory…north and west shores of Kauai, Oahu,
Molokai, and for north shores of Maui

 

Generally light winds from variable directions…for the time being. 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 high pressure system far to the northeast, with its associated high pressure ridge trailing back to the southwest…over the central islands. At the same time, we have low pressure systems well to the northwest through north, with the tail-end of an associated cold fronts draping southwestward. We’ll find light winds this week, with daytime sea breezes…although becoming more breezy from the southwest near Kauai and Oahu as cold fronts pass by to the north. Those areas that are exposed to light southeasterly breezes will see volcanic haze (vog). 

Rainfall will remain limited…with just a few showers here and there. Here’s the looping radar image showing just a few showers across our area…mostly over the nearby ocean. We’ll see our winds remaining light for the most part, carrying a few light showers our way. At the same time, these light winds will prompt clear to partly cloudy mornings, giving way to afternoon upcountry clouds…although showers will be spotty and generally very light. The cold front, now stalled to the north, has pushed a high pressure ridge down over the islands. This in turn will continue the light winds, and keep a mostly dry weather pattern in place. A second cold front will approach later in the week, although the models are keeping this cold front from doing much business for us. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.


World-wide tropical cyclone activity:


>>> Atlantic Ocean: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

>>> Caribbean Sea: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


>>> Gulf of Mexico: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


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

>>> Eastern Pacific: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 North Pacific hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on May 15, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


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: The central north Pacific hurricane season has officially ended. Routine issuance of the tropical weather outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, special tropical weather outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


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: Tropical cyclone 05S (Bansi) remains active in the south Indian Ocean. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map for this strengthening tropical cyclone…which is equivalent to a category 5 hurricane! Here’s the NOAA satellite image of this system…to the northeast of La Reunion Island.

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

 

Interesting: Global Warming “hiatus” connected to volcanic eruptions – The “warming hiatus” that has occurred over the last 15 years has been caused in part by small volcanic eruptions.


Scientists have long known that volcanoes cool the atmosphere because of the sulfur dioxide that is expelled during eruptions. Droplets of sulfuric acid that form when the gas combines with oxygen in the upper atmosphere can persist for many months, reflecting sunlight away from Earth and lowering temperatures at the surface and in the lower atmosphere.


Previous research suggested that early 21st-century eruptions might explain up to a third of the recent warming hiatus.


New research available online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) further identifies observational climate signals caused by recent volcanic activity. This new research complements an earlier GRL paper published in November, which relied on a combination of ground, air and satellite measurements, indicating that a series of small 21st-century volcanic eruptions deflected substantially more solar radiation than previously estimated.


“This new work shows that the climate signals of late 20th- and early 21st-century volcanic activity can be detected in a variety of different observational data sets,” said Benjamin Santer, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist and lead author of the study.


The warmest year on record is 1998. After that, the steep climb in global surface temperatures observed over the 20th century appeared to level off. This “hiatus” received considerable attention, despite the fact that the full observational surface temperature record shows many instances of slowing and acceleration in warming rates. Scientists had previously suggested that factors such as weak solar activity and increased heat uptake by the oceans could be responsible for the recent lull in temperature increases. After publication of a 2011 paper in the journal Science by Susan Solomon of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (link is external) (MIT), it was recognized that an uptick in volcanic activity might also be implicated in the warming hiatus.


Prior to the 2011 Science paper, the prevailing scientific thinking was that only very 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 capable of impacting global climate. This conventional wisdom was largely based on climate model simulations. But according to David Ridley, an atmospheric scientist at MIT and lead author of the November GRL paper, these simulations were missing an important component of volcanic activity.


Ridley and colleagues found the missing piece of the puzzle at the intersection of two atmospheric layers, the stratosphere and the troposphere — the lowest layer of the atmosphere, where all weather takes place. Those layers meet between 10 and 15 kilometers (six to nine miles) above the Earth.


Satellite measurements of the sulfuric acid droplets and aerosols produced by erupting volcanoes are generally restricted to above 15 km. Below 15 km, cirrus clouds can interfere with satellite aerosol measurements. This means that toward the poles, where the lower stratosphere can reach down to 10 km, the satellite measurements miss a significant chunk of the total volcanic aerosol loading.


To get around this problem, the study by Ridley and colleagues combined observations from ground-, air- and space-based instruments to better observe aerosols in the lower portion of the stratosphere. They used these improved estimates of total volcanic aerosols in a simple climate model, and estimated that volcanoes may have caused cooling of 0.05 degrees to 0.12 degrees Celsius since 2000.


The second Livermore-led study shows that the signals of these late 20th and early 21st eruptions can be positively identified in atmospheric temperature, moisture and the reflected solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere. A vital step in detecting these volcanic signals is the removal of the “climate noise” caused by El Niños and La Niñas.


“The fact that these volcanic signatures are apparent in multiple independently measured climate variables really supports the idea that they are influencing climate in spite of their moderate size,” said Mark Zelinka, another Livermore author. “If we wish to accurately simulate recent climate change in models, we cannot neglect the ability of these smaller eruptions to reflect sunlight away from Earth.”