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

76 – 58  Lihue, Kauai
77 – 62  Honolulu, Oahu
76 – 64  Molokai AP
77 – 60  Kahului, Maui
79 – 69  Kailua Kona
79 – 72  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.01  Waialae, Kauai
0.01  Waianae Valley, Oahu
0.00  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.04  Kula 1, Maui
1.00  Kamuela Upper, Big Island


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


17  Port Allen, Kauai – SE
16  Kahuku Trng, Oahu – SE
16  Molokai – NNE
11  Lanai – SW
17  Kahoolawe – NNW
22  Kapalua, Maui – NE
22  Upolu AP, Big Island – NE


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 large area of clouds is over the ocean to the northeast
and north of Hawaii…along with a dissipating cold
front now over the ocean to the south of the Big Island

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg
Mostly clear conditions,,,although there are nearby clouds around


http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
There are just a few lights showers…most areas are dry today



~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~


Small Craft Advisory…for winds and seas – windiest coasts
and channels

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



Light east to southeasterly breezes through mid-week. 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 just offshore to the north of Hawaii, moving eastward. At the same time, we have low pressure systems to the north and northwest. The recent cold front is done with us now, and is offshore to the south of the Big Island. The air coming into the state in the wake of this recent cold front is very dry and cooler, from the northwest, north and northeast for the time being. Our winds will be quite light, generally from the east to southeast through mid-week, with possible voggy conditions returning. The winds will veer back towards the south and southwest and strength Thursday and Friday…ahead of another cold front.

Mostly dry weather will prevail through the next several days. Here’s the looping radar image showing a few minor showers. Our weather will be uneventful through the next several days, with limited rainfall. Days will be clear to partly cloudy, with some afternoon clouds over and around the mountains starting Monday. Since light east to southeast winds will be blowing Monday through Wednesday, we may see a few minor windward showers at times locally. The computer models are still showing another cold front arriving Friday, which will usher in another round of passing showers. It looks like the leeward sides of the islands will be nice next weekend, while the windward sides have off and on passing showers…stay tuned. I’ll be back with more information on all of the above, I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here in Kula, Maui:  It’s still partly cloudy here on Maui, although the skies are clearing quickly. The winds are light, certainly compared to yesterday’s blustery conditions. The air has turned much cooler in the wake of the recent cold front, with a temperature of 50.7 degrees here at my weather tower, which is 10+ degrees cooler than the same time Saturday morning.  It was 61 degrees down at the Kahului airport near the ocean…with 39 degrees atop the Haleakala Crater. The summit of the Big Island was a colder 25.4 degrees atop Mauna Kea. The warmest temperature around the state at the same time was a balmy 77 degrees at the Hilo AP on the Big Island.

~~~ This afternoon has turned to be wonderful, with totally clear skies, even over the mountains. There is some volcanic haze down in the central valley, from the surface up through about 5,000 feet. It’s light to moderately thick, although somehow seems restricted to the central valley…rather than spreading out across the rest of the island for a change. The air temperature is 64.4 degrees, with light breezes at best. My neighbors and I just got back from an art exhibit up on the Crater Road. We had such a pleasant visit, and we got talking to the artist who lives there…whose name is George Allen, a very well known painter. Somehow they found out that I was the weatherman (they used to watch my TV weather show), and we got involved talking about all kinds topics that took us worldwide in scope. He and his wife live in a totally awesome house, and they invited us to come back up for a garden tour next time…which we all agreed to do soon.

~~~ It’s now early evening at around 625pm, under totally clear skies, other than some volcanic haze down in the central valley. Speaking of vog, I expect it to increase further over the next several days, as the winds swing around to the east-southeast and southeast. The air continues to be dry and stable, and definitely on the cool side of normal. It’s already 58 degrees, and almost certainly will dive down into the 40’s by early Monday morning. Update at 845pm, the temperature has dropped to 49.3 degrees already, this may be one of the coldest nights this winter so far, at least up here in Kula. Meanwhile, it was a much warmer 68 degrees down at the Kahului airport at about the same time!


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: There are no active tropical cyclones

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

 

Interesting: The Future of Droughts in the US Central Plains and Southwest – In the recent film Interstellar, a mysterious phenomenon known as “the blight” is wiping out agriculture around the world until only corn—for some reason—survives. Humanity is on the brink of starvation. While the blight may be science fiction, global warming is not, and a new study finds that future warming could decimate the U.S.’s Central Plains and Southwest regions over the next century, topping even the worst drought of the last thousand years.


“I was honestly surprised at just how dry the future is likely to be,” said co-author Toby Ault at Cornell University.


The research, published in the first edition of Science Advances, found that future drought conditions are likely to exceed a megadrought that swept through the western U.S. in the 12th and 13th Centuries. This Medieval megadrought across the Southwest was so bad it has been blamed, at least in part, for the collapse of the Anasazi people, who disappeared from the region around that time. A megadrought is a drought that lasts longer than decade, which means the Dust Bowl of the 1930s doesn’t even apply.


To predict future drought risk, the scientist first turned to tree ring data going back to 1,000 AD to document past conditions, including the megadrought of the 12th and 13 centuries. Then they ran 17 computer models of future climate predictions from 2050 to 2099, including both a business-as-usual—i.e. high—carbon emission scenario and a moderate one.


The researchers consistently found that future drought in the American Central Plains and Southwest “will likely exceed even the most severe megadrought periods of the Medieval era…representing an unprecedented fundamental climate shift with respect to the last millennium,” they write. According to the paper, there is over an 80 percent chance of a megadrought lasting for decades in the region in the second half of this century.


Experts have long-warned that climate change from burning fossil fuels will likely exacerbate drought conditions in this region, but the new study is unparalleled both for the magnitude to the drought and the invariability of its findings.


“The surprising thing to us was really how consistent the response was over these regions, nearly regardless of what model we used or what soil moisture metric we looked at,” said lead author Benjamin Cook with the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “It all showed this really, really significant drying.”


And it’s unequivocally linked to climate change. There there will not be significantly less precipitation, according to their findings, but warmer temperatures from climate change will make water evaporate much more quickly from the land back into the air, a process scientists call evapotranspiration.


In addition to running 17 models, the team used three different metics for drought: each of which showed drying beyond anything seen in the last 1,000 years. Their findings extend, on the eastern end, from southern Minnesota and western Iowa—including the edge of some of the most rich agricultural land on the continent—all the way west to the Pacific Ocean. They also extend southward to northern Texas.