Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday…along with the minimum temperatures Wednesday:
82 – 74 Lihue, Kauai
83 – 72 Honolulu, Oahu
77 – 66 Molokai AP
83 – 65 Kahului, Maui
81 – 71 Kailua Kona
82 – 63 Hilo, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Wednesday evening:
0.61 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.11 Poamoho RG 1, Oahu
0.10 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.33 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.20 Pahoa, Piihonua and Mountain View, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Wednesday evening:
24 Port Allen, Kauai – E
27 Kii, Oahu – ENE
30 Molokai – NE
30 Lanai – NE
33 Kahoolawe – NE
24 Kahului AP, Maui – NE
37 Kealakomo, 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
High clouds moving into the state from the west, preceding a cold front/
trough – in addition to a counter-clockwise rotating upper level
low pressure system to the east…which is migrating slowly
westward towards the islands 
High cirrus clouds over the state, providing good colors at sunrise…a new
cloud band will impact the state from the east into the night, bringing
windward showers our way into Thursday morning
A new batch of showers, concentrating mostly along our
windward sides…will arrive, first on the Big Island and
Maui, and then up the chain into Thursday morning
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
High Surf Advisory…west shores of the Big Island
Moderately strong easterly trade winds, followed by much lighter breezes Thursday and Friday…with trades picking up again during the weekend and beyong. 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 a ridge of high pressure extending southwest…just to our northeast. At the same time, we have gale low pressure systems to the north and northwest…with an associated trough over the ocean to the northwest. Our winds will be generally light to moderately strong easterly trades, although southeasterly at times locally…bringing voggy skies overhead periodically.
More windward showers will impact the windward sides tonight into the morning…with a pronounced weather change arriving Friday into the weekend and beyond. Here’s the looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands. The trough of low pressure to our northwest is steadily moving in our direction, and will continue to move over the state through the next several days. At the same time, an area of instability with cold air aloft…will approach from the east. The inter-mingling of these two air masses will keep cloudy periods and off and on showers over us for a prolonged period. We may eventually find locally heavy showers falling, or even an isolated thunderstorm late this coming weekend or early next week…stay tuned for further adjustments to this outlook. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Wednesday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Here on Maui: The winds are calm at the moment, with a low temperature of 52 degrees here at my weather tower, at 545am on this Wednesday morning. It was 66 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 34 degrees atop Mauna Kea. The warmest temperature around the state was 74 degrees at the Lihue AP on Kauai.
~~~ We’re just pushing into the early afternoon hours now at noon, under partly to mostly cloudy skies, with light to moderately strong trade winds blowing. Here at my Kula weather tower, the air temperature was 69.8 degrees, while it was 78 degrees at about the same time at the Kahului AP. It was a cooler 72 at the Kapalua AP, with light rain falling. The Hana AP was 75 and cloudy, with a cooler 57 degree reading atop the Haleakala Crater. There’s a mix of both low and high level clouds, which will make for less than a perfectly sunny day…and will stick around through the rest of the afternoon. Later in the afternoon its mostly cloudy over Maui, with light to moderately strong trade winds blowing. Looking down into the central valley, I can see light to medium haze there. As for a temperature at 415pm here in Kula, it was exactly 70 degrees…with 80 down at the Kahului AP.
~~~ It’s now into the early evening hours, under a deck of high and lower level clouds, making for partly to mostly cloudy conditions as we head into the sunset hour. Speaking of which, I expect some of this high cirrus to light up a nice orange and or pink, as it did at sunrise this morning. Here in Kula, at my upcountry weather tower, the temperature is cooling, and now showing 66.6 degrees at near 615pm. These clouds will trap some of today’s heat, and make for somewhat warmer temperatures Thursday morning…compared to the last several. As mentioned above, we have a rather pronounced weather change on the horizon, which should kick in during the period Thursday through the upcoming weekend, and quite likely into early next week as well.
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 14S (Glenda) remains active in the South Indian Ocean, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with a Navy satellite image.
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: Plastic-Eating Corals Discovered on Great Barrier Reef – Researchers in Australia have found that corals commonly found on the Great Barrier Reef will eat micro-plastic pollution.
“Corals are non-selective feeders and our results show that they can consume microplastics when the plastics are present in seawater,” says Dr Mia Hoogenboom, a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
“If microplastic pollution increases on the Great Barrier Reef, corals could be negatively affected as their tiny stomach-cavities become full of indigestible plastic,” Dr Hoogenboom says.
Microplastics are tiny fragments of plastic in the environment and are a widespread contaminant in marine ecosystems, particularly in inshore coral reefs.
Despite the proliferation of microplastics, their impact on marine ecosystems is poorly understood.
“Marine plastic pollution is a global problem and microplastics can have negative effects on the health of marine organisms,” says Dr Hoogenboom.
“We aimed to determine whether corals from inshore coral reefs consume microplastics, and whether there is potential for plastic pollution to affect coral reefs.”
As part of the study the researchers put corals collected from the Great Barrier Reef into plastic contaminated water.
After two nights they found that the corals had eaten plastic particles.
“Corals get energy from photosynthesis by symbiotic algae living within their tissues, but they also feed on a variety of other food including zooplankton, sediment and other microscopic organisms that live in seawater,” says study lead author Nora Hall, a James Cook University Masters graduate.
“We found that the corals ate plastic at rates only slightly lower than their normal rate of feeding on marine plankton,” she says.
The plastic was found deep inside the coral polyp wrapped in digestive tissue, raising concerns that it might impede the corals ability to digest its normal food.
The team also sampled the waters adjacent to inshore coral reefs on the Great Barrier Reef.
“During this testing we found microplastics, including polystyrene and polyethylene, although only in small amounts,” says study co-author, Kathryn Berry, a PhD student at James Cook University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
The researchers say the next step is to determine the impact plastic has on coral physiology and health, as well as its impact on other marine organisms.
“We are also investigating whether fish on coral reefs eat plastics, and whether plastic consumption influences fish growth and survival.” Dr Hoogenboom says.
Email Glenn James: 
