Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday…along with the minimum temperatures Monday:
80 – 62 Lihue, Kauai
79 – 65 Honolulu, Oahu
78 – 57 Molokai AP
80 – 57 Kahului, Maui
81 – 68 Kailua Kona
83 – 69 Hilo, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Monday evening:
0.00 Kauai
0.02 Honolulu AP, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.00 Maui
0.01 Kapapala Ranch, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Monday evening:
10 Waimea Heights, Kauai – SW
12 Kahuku Trng, Oahu – SE
10 Molokai – SW
10 Lanai – SW
10 Kahoolawe – SE
13 Maalaea Bay, Maui – NNE
15 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
Middle and high clouds are over the ocean
to the northwest through northeast 
Clear to partly cloudy skies – locally thick vog
There are just a few lights showers around…most areas are dry
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Celebrating President’s Day
Light east to southeasterly breezes through mid-week…with locally thick vog. 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 offshore to the northeast of Hawaii, with an associated ridge extending southwest from its center…over the central islands. At the same time, we have lots of low pressure systems to the north and northwest…with associated cold fronts over the ocean to the northwest. The air coming into the state now is dry, stable, which is making for cool nights and early mornings. Our winds will be quite light, generally from the east southeast through mid-week, with voggy conditions locally. The winds will veer back towards the south and southwest…strengthening Thursday and Friday…ahead of another cold front.
Generally dry conditions through most of Thursday…with the next cold front expected around Friday. Here’s the looping radar image showing just a few showers falling, mostly offshore over the ocean. Our weather will be uneventful through the next several days, with limited rainfall at best. Days will be clear to partly cloudy, with some afternoon clouds over and around the mountains in places. Since light east to southeast winds will be blowing, we may also see a few minor windward showers at times locally. The computer models are still showing another cold front arriving around Friday, which will usher in another round of passing showers. It looks like the leeward sides of the islands will have improving weather during the weekend, while the windward sides may 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 Monday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Here in Kula, Maui: There’s lots of stars shining above on this early Monday morning, which suggests that much of Maui is clear, although its still too dark to know for sure. The winds are light, with a low temperature of 48 degrees here at my weather tower. It was 57 degrees down at the Kahului airport near the ocean…with 43 degrees atop the Haleakala Crater at the same time. The summit of the Big Island was a colder 36 degrees atop Mauna Kea. The warmest temperature around the state at the same time was 66 degrees at both the Hilo AP and the Kona AP on the Big Island. / At 920am, I see that its an incredibly beautiful day, with very few clouds, and a thin layer of haze down in the central valley…topping out at near 3,000 feet. BTW, it looks very likely that the middle level clouds now over Kauai and Oahu, will be spreading down over Maui County to some degree – I can see them off to the northwest already.
~~~ The altocumulus clouds (middle levels of the atmosphere), which were treking into the state earlier this morning, have now begun to pull back to the north. There are some low clouds that are starting to form over the central valley, and look like they’re trying to push up onto the slopes of the mountains. Speaking of the central valley, that light volcanic haze that was down there earlier, seems to be getting thicker now…and will likely continue to become more dense over the next few days. The air temperature here in Kula at 1240pm, has risen to 67.8 degrees, while down at the Kahului airport, it was a warmer 79 degrees at the same time, while the Haleakala Crater was a cooler 52 degrees.
~~~ Despite the fact that it is cloudy and foggy here at my place, it is clear and very nice elsewhere around Maui. The volcanic haze has returned however, and I expect it to stick around for several more days…thick at times. The air temperature is 64.8 degrees at near 6pm, although as the clouds clear in a while, the temperature will fall quickly overnight. The winds here in Kula are near calm, with light winds now enveloping the entire state…this won’t change much over the next several days either.
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: Tropical Cyclone 12P (Lam) is now active near the Gulf of Carpenteria, Australia, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with a NOAA satellite image.
>>> 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.
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