Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha Paragraphs / March 23-24, 2015

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

82 – 73  Lihue, Kauai
87 – 73  Honolulu, Oahu – 87 degrees tied the high temperature record set in 1987
81 – 68  Molokai AP
86 – 64  Kahului, Maui
83 – 70  Kailua Kona
82 – 66  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.33  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.14  Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
0.00  kamalo, Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.06  Puu Kukui, Maui
0.18  Pahoa, Big Island

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

15  Mana, Kauai – NW
16  Kii – SE
20  Molokai – ESE
22  Lanai – NE
22  Kahoolawe – NE
21  Kahului AP, Maui – NE
22  Upolu AP, Big Island – ENE

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



An approaching cold front to the northwest of Hawaii


Mostly clear to partly cloudy across the Aloha State

Just a few showers…mostly over the nearby ocean

Here’s the looping radar image for the
Hawaiian Islands

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

The Mauna Kea Summit…on the Big Island of Hawaii

Our winds will become lighter for a few days…then increase again during the second half of the 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 well to the northeast of the state, with a trailing ridge of high pressure just to our north…moving south. At the same time, we have low pressure systems well to the north of the islands, with trailing cold fronts to our northwest. The winds are easing up as another late season cold front approaches the state from the northwest. These lighter winds, which will shift to the southeast locally, may very well return volcanic haze to some parts of the state into mid-week. Then as a cold front moves through, we’ll find cooler northerly winds returning later Wednesday for a day or two…gradually becoming lighter easterly trade winds Friday into the weekend.

Cloudy periods and a few showers…although not many expected through Wednesday morning. A new cold front will approach the state later Tuesday, and likely reach Kauai by Wednesday. This front will slip down over the rest of the islands into Thursday, bringing a period of showers, lingering over the Big Island end of the state into Friday. As noted above, there will be a rather significant increase in wind speeds in the wake of the cold front, carrying some leftover showers to the north facing slopes, and even into the leeward sides on the smaller islands Thursday.  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.

Here on Maui: The skies are clear to partly cloudy over Maui early this morning…with some nice pink colors at sunrise. The low temperature was 51.1 degrees here at my Kula weather tower at 605am, while it was 68 degrees down at the Kahului, 72 at the Hana airport, and 48 degrees atop the Haleakala Crater at the same time. The warmest low temperature around the state was 74 degrees at the Honolulu and Lihue airports.

~~~ We’re into the middle of the afternoon on Monday, under cloudy skies in the upcountry areas, while its partly cloudy down near the beaches. I was over on the windward side of east Maui much of the day, getting a haircut in Haiku. I was at my friend Linda’s place, who I visit in Marin County on my vacations…where she also owns a house. Her son’s wife is my haircutter, and also the Mother of Linda’s grandchild Milo. It is so much warmer over in that area, than up here in Kula. I must admit it felt good to get back up here at the 3,100 foot elevation, rather than down there in the lowlands. I know that property very well, and the weather on that side, as I lived over there for 11 years…before moving up here to Kula.

~~~ It’s early evening now at 555pm, under partly cloudy skies, and a lighter wind flow…and mostly dry conditions. The overlying atmosphere is pretty dry and stable, thus rainfall has been very limited across Maui County, and elsewhere in the state too. As the clouds clear tonight, and downslope breezes begin, Tuesday morning will be cooler than the last several days. I seem to be seeing a bit of haze showing up as it gets dark now…I’ll know more about that as it gets light on Tuesday.

>>> 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 18P (Nathan) remains active, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with the 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: Massive marine sanctuary created in the Pacific – Mutiny on the Bounty is a tale about the Royal Navy ship Bounty. On April 28, 1789, Fletcher Christian led sailors in a mutiny against their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh. So the story goes, the captain was set afloat in a small boat along with crew members who were loyal to him, while the mutineers settled on Pitcairn Island or Tahiti and burned Bounty off Pitcairn to avoid detection.

Today Pitcairn island’s population is about 50 people, including descendants of Fletcher Christian, and the surrounding waters where the Bounty supposedly went down in flames has just become the world’s largest contiguous ocean reserve.

This is great news for the sanctity of the Pacific ocean and its inhabitants.

The Pitcairn Islands is the last remaining British Overseas Territory in the Pacific, made up of four of the most remote islands in the world, situated in the central South Pacific, halfway between New Zealand and South America.

The newly appointed 322,138-square-mile reserve is roughly 3 ½ times the size of the United Kingdom, and home to at least 1,249 species of marine mammals, seabirds and fish.

This underwater development in the remote Pacific Ocean will now be protected thanks in part to the Pristine Seas project, which National Geographic and Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Enric Sala launched to find, survey and help care for the last wild parts of the ocean, using a combination of exploration, scientific research, economic analysis and more.

The project relies on global leaders, local communities, tourism operators, nongovernmental organizations and even the military—to help manage protected areas such as the Pitcairn Islands, because like national parks, marine protected areas not only need to be set aside, but also managed over time.

The Pitcairn Islands development was not the project’s first success. So far the Pristine Seas project has helped to inspire country leaders to create five large reserves totaling over 1.2 million square kilometers. (There’s a cool map on this page showing where the five reserves are.)

For the Pitcairn Islands, becoming the world’s largest single marine protected area didn’t happen overnight. It started with an expedition back in 2012.

The National Geographic Society, in cooperation with the Pew Charitable Trusts, set out on a mission to determine the health of the marine environment surrounding the four Pitcairn Islands. What they discovered was “an exquisite and highly functional ecosystem surrounding two of the more remote islands, filled with large predators and the southernmost functional coral reef ecosystem in the Pacific.”

The Pristine Seas team worked with the leaders of the local community to draft a proposal to create a no-take marine reserve in the entire Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the islands. The community then took a vote and it was unanimous in favor of creating the reserve, and in January 2013 a joint proposal was submitted to the UK Government for consideration.

In June 2014, National Geographic published a study of their findings in the scientific journal PLOS One, aptly named, The Real Bounty: Marine Biodiversity in the Pitcairn Islands.

Which brings us up to date, and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement of the creation of the world’s largest single marine protected area. On March 18, 2015, the U.K. government established the world’s largest single fully protected no-take marine reserve around the Pitcairn Islands, protecting 322,138 square miles of some of the most virgin ocean habitat on the planet.

What exactly is a “marine protected area”? National Geographic describes them as “special places in the ocean designated to help protect and restore marine life and habitat, much like national parks protect wildlife and habitat on land.”

The three major threats to the health of our oceans, according to Nat Geo are: overfishing, marine pollution and the effects of climate change on the ocean (which impacts the temperature and chemistry of ecosystems).

Due to their remoteness and low human population, the Pitcairn Islands contains wildlife in an almost pristine state, including intact deep-sea habitats with many species new to science. The protected area is home to one of the world’s two remaining raised coral atolls, as well as “40 Mile Reef,” the deepest and most well-developed coral reef known to humans.

The Real Bounty findings revealed rare species such as the false catshark, 70 species of hard corals, the world’s deepest-known living plant (a species of encrusting coralline algae found 1,253 feet below sea level), and eight probable new species of reef fishes.

The report also noted unusual observations like typically shallow reef sharks at depths down to 300 meters, concluding that their findings “highlight the uniqueness and high biodiversity value of the Pitcairn Islands as one of the least impacted in the Pacific, and suggest the need for immediate protection.”

Will this protected reserve really be protected? Absolutely, according to the National Geographic announcement:

The Bertarelli Foundation announced a five-year commitment to support the monitoring of the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve, using a technology known as the Virtual Watch Room. With this satellite monitoring system, government officials will be able to detect illegal fishing activity in real time. This is the first time any government has combined creation of a marine reserve with the most up-to-date technology for surveillance and enforcement of a protected area.

The Real Bounty findings explain, “Because of the nearly pristine and unique nature of most marine ecosystems of the Pitcairn Islands, its EEZ has a unique global value that is irreplaceable.”

EEZ refers to a sea zone prescribed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over which a state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources.

The report illustrates:

There are only a handful of areas in the EEZs of the world that remain pristine, occupying probably less than 5% of the ocean. These places allow us to envision what the ocean was like before heavy human impacts, to understand what we have lost in other places because of human impacts, and most importantly, to set proper conservation and management goals for our oceans.

The Pitcairn Islands reserve is part of a growing international movement to safeguard ocean waters that has protected more than 2.5 million square miles to date. In April 2010, the British government created the Chagos Marine Reserve in the Indian Ocean — which until the Pitcairn Islands announcement, was the largest continuous, fully protected area of ocean in the world. And in September 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama significantly expanded the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, first created by President George W. Bush in the south-central Pacific.

The creation of the world’s largest fully protected marine reserve is certainly good news for the planet, but what makes the Pitcairn Islands development truly great news is the incorporation of technology for surveillance and enforcement of reserve rules to protect it from its true predators: human beings.