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

83 – 69  Lihue, Kauai
82 – 69  Honolulu, Oahu
7963  Molokai AP
82 – 64  Kahului, Maui
83 – 69  Kailua Kona
88 – 66  Hilo, Hawaii

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


0.02  Anahola, Kauai
0.00  Oahu
0.00  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.00  Maui
0.01  Glenwood, Big Island


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


16  Port Allen, Kauai – W
20  Bellows, Oahu – SW
21  Molokai – SW
22  Lanai – SW
14  Kahoolawe – SW
27  Kula 1, Maui – SE

13  Kealakomo, Big Island – SW


Hawaii’s MountainsHere’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
An advancing cold front has reached Kauai…
Oahu is next in line


http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg
A fairly quick moving cold front will spread showers down
across Kauai and Oahu tonight into Friday morning


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

Showers spreading down the island chain…some out ahead
of the front through Friday evening



~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative
~~~


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


Small Craft Advisory
…rising seas and increasing winds
around waters of Kauai, Oahu and Maui County


Locally gusty winds from the south and southwest. 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 of Hawaii moving northward, with an associated ridge extending southwest from its center…moving down over the Big Island. At the same time, we have lots of low pressure systems to the north, with a cold front moving across the state, from northwest to southeast this evening into Friday. Our winds will continue from the southwest, strengthening ahead of the frontal boundary into Friday. Winds will shift to the northeast to east in the wake of the frontal passage (fropa) during the weekend, then veer to the southeast again Monday, ahead of another cold front approaching the state. We should finally see the return of our long lost trade winds by mid-week.

Rainfall from a cold front reaching Kauai and Oahu this evening into Friday morning. Here’s the looping radar image showing some showers mostly offshore to the west and north of the islands. According to the satellite images above, we have a large area of clouds to our north. There’s a cold front embedded in this cloud field, which will usher in another round of precipitation. Kauai will find this front passing overhead this evening, Oahu and Maui County will see its arrival Friday into the night…with the front stalling over the Maui Saturday. Showers in the wake of the cold front should be rather minor, bringing a few to our windward sides into Sunday. We’ll have yet another cold front pushing in our direction early next week, although it will likely stall before reaching Kauai. Looking further ahead, the trade winds will arrive around next Wednesday, bringing some windward biased showers as usual. The models continue suggesting that we may see increasing windward showers later next week…stay tuned. I’ll be back with more information on all of the above, I hope you have a great Thursday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here in Kula, Maui: It’s still too dark to see the sky, although the winds are calm, with a low temperature of 56 degrees here at my weather tower at 545am on this Thursday morning. It was 65 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 was 72 degrees at the Lihue AP on Kauai. I’ll be curious to see how much volcanic haze is still in the air as soon the sun comes up…more on that soon. It’s now 630am, and the higher clouds over Maui are starting to light up a nice pink color. I can see that there’s still some light vog down in the central valley this morning too. Now at 11am, my wind chime is starting to tell me that the winds are increasing. These kona winds aren’t nearly as strong as what we saw about this time last week, although stronger than they have been more recently – and its become very voggy again!

~~~ It’s early afternoon here in Kula, and as I was mentioning above, the kona winds are increasing. It’s cloudy although relatively warm all things considered, with 72.5 degrees at 1240pm. I’ve lost the view down into the central valley, although at last glance there was thick volcanic haze. / The winds now at mid-afternoon have ventilated most of the vog away, and have carried almost all the clouds away too!

~~~
Now that we’re into the early evening hour at 610pm, the clouds have returned, which are streaming through the central valley on the gusty kona winds down there. There are some middle level clouds above the West Maui Mountains too, which are called altocumulus. Today has been cloudy, then almost totally clear, and then cloudy again going into the night, starting off with that colorful sunrise early this morning…an altogether great day of weather watching!


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 13P (Marcia) remains active in the Coral Sea, offshore from western Australia, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with a NOAA satellite image.

>>> North and South Indian Oceans:
Tropical Cyclone 12P (Lam) is dissipating inland over the Northern Territory, Australia, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with a NOAA satellite image Final Warning

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

 

Interesting:  Going Tubeless – Recently one of the country’s most popular paper goods suppliers, Scott Products, did away with the cardboard inner tube inside of its toilet paper rolls and is now going tubeless. Here’s why that’s good news for the environment.


Each year over 17 billion toilet paper tubes are thrown away, and most end up in landfills. To put that in perspective, this amount of waste is enough to fill the Empire State Building…twice! And did you know that in New York City alone, 14,000 toilet paper inner tubes are thrown away every 15 minutes? In fact, just the tubes from toilet paper rolls account for millions of pounds of waste each year.


Since first putting out toilet paper in the 1980s, Scott Products has become the top supplier. Therefore, the company’s move to go tubeless carries even more environmental significance because it sets a precedent. What if every toilet paper manufacturer ditched the inner tube? Imagining the benefits of that is exciting for all of us environmental activists out there.


What if we were to expand on this strategy beyond just toilet paper? Many other products contain a wasteful component that can be eliminated in order to help save our planet. What if paper towel companies did this as well? Each year billions of paper towel tubes end up biodegrading in landfills, but they don’t need to be there.


If the average American uses about 741 pounds of paper per year, with 55 pounds of that being from toilet and towel paper, going cardboard tubeless could mean a huge waste-reduction and could help chip away at the spread of trash dumps across the country and world. If both the toilet paper and paper towel inner rolls were dispensed with, this could equate to eliminating a significant portion of the 55 pounds of waste, per person, per year, that we generate in just this one country alone.


The United States has an average of 319 million people in its population. While the paper waste does not seem like a prodigious figure for one individual per year, when you multiply that by almost half-a-billion people, that is a colossal amount of waste just from these two products alone. When you look at it like this, taking away the tube seems like a no-brainer. It is not a perfect solution to all of our environmental waste problems, but it is certainly a start.