Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha Paragraphs / March 26-27, 2015

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

79 – 69  Lihue, Kauai
80 – 69  Honolulu, Oahu
76 – 65  Molokai AP
79 – 70  Kahului, Maui
84 – 72  Kailua Kona
82 – 72  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.32  Kilohana, Kauai
2.76  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
5.71  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.03  Lanai
0.12  Kahoolawe
6.63  Puu Kukui, Maui
3.54  Kawainui Stream, Big Island

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

22  Poipu, Kauai – NE
27  Kahuku Trng – NE
35  Molokai – NE
35  Lanai – NE
27  Kahoolawe – NE
35  Maalaea Bay, Maui – NE
37  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



A cold front is breaking apart over the eastern Islands…
and will continue to dissipate overnight


Low clouds associated with the quickly dissipating cold front are
banked-up against the windward sides of the islands…elsewhere
locally

Showers are falling over the windward sides of
Oahu, Maui County and the Big Island…with a
few in other parts of the state as well

Here’s the looping radar image for the
Hawaiian Islands

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

The Mauna Kea Summit…on the Big Island of Hawaii

Small Craft Wind Advisory…over the windiest coasts
and channels around the state

The trade winds over the islands are locally strong and gusty…which will be diminishing later Friday into the weekend. 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 high pressure systems well to the northeast and closer to north-northeast of the state. At the same time, we have a low pressure system far to the north of the islands, with the tail-end of a dissipating cold front over the Big Island. There are locally strong and gusty trade winds blowing…which will be become light to moderate into the weekend and beyond.

Clouds and showers have diminished over Kauai and Oahu…and will do so over the eastern islands Friday. The recent cold front has brought rainfall to our islands, some of which was locally heavy. These showers will continue in an off and on manner tonight over the Big Island and east Maui. At the same time, drier air has arrived over Kauai and Oahu. As the trade winds become lighter later Friday into the weekend, there will be even fewer of these windward showers. The models continue to show another cold front approaching the islands this weekend, although have it stalling before arriving over Kauai. The even longer range outlook suggests that yet another cold front may move into the state around next Tuesday, with a chance of bringing rain to the state then…stay tuned. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Thursday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui: The skies are mostly cloudy over Maui early this morning, and there has been showers falling through the night, at least in many areas. The low temperature was 57 degrees here at my Kula weather tower at 545am, while it was 70 degrees down at the Kahului airport, 72 at the Hana airport, and 41 degrees atop the Haleakala Crater at the same time. The warmest low temperature around the state was 73 degrees at both Kailua Kona and Hilo on the Big Island.

~~~ It’s now 310pm Thursday afternoon, under partly to mostly cloudy skies, with still some locally very breezy winds blowing. There’s been gusts up over 40 in several locations today, and the latest report from Kapalua showed they had a gust of 38 mph recently. Here in Kula, its partly cloudy, and dry, with much lighter winds than in other parts of the island. I can see that there’s still some drizzle or mist falling along the windward sides of Maui, although it looks light. Here at my weather tower, it’s a nice warm 77.5 degrees, which feels just about perfect, what with the nice breeze blowing.

~~~ We’re into the early evening hour now, at 525pm, under mostly cloudy skies, and locally very breezy trade winds. Here in upcountry Kula, it’s cloudy, and we just had a nice light shower, that got things wet briefly. The air temperature is a pleasant 69.3 degrees, with hardly a breath of wind to speak of. At about the same time, it was 75 degrees down at the Kahului airport, and 73 at both Kapalua and Hana…with 52 degrees up at the Haleakala Crater. The residual moisture from the dissipating cold front now over the Big Island, is the source of our clouds and showers here on Maui.

>>> 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: Tropical Cyclone 04W is now active in the northwest Pacific, here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image…and what the computer weather models are showing.

>>> 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: How NASA is planning on diverting an asteroid – NASA has decided to pluck a small boulder off an asteroid and bring it back to the vicinity of Earth, rather than bag up an entire asteroid, agency officials in charge of the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) announced today.

The research, conducted in the Bay of Biscay west of France, also discovered the first case of a deep water fish species with an “intersex” condition, a blend of male and female sex organs. The sampling was done in an area with no apparent point-source pollution, and appears to reflect general ocean conditions.

The findings have been published in Marine Environmental Research, by scientists from Oregon State University; the Center for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science in the United Kingdom; and other agencies. It was supported by the European Union.

The $1.25 billion mission, which is planned to launch in December 2020, would send a robotic spacecraft for a rendezvous with an asteroid in 2022. After touching down on the asteroid’s surface, the spacecraft would snatch a boulder several meters across. The spacecraft would then orbit the asteroid for up to 400 days, testing out an idea for defending Earth from a catastrophic asteroid impact: using the spacecraft’s own gravitational field to subtly alter the asteroid’s orbit. Next, the spacecraft would bring the snatched rock back to Earth’s vicinity in 2025. Finally, as part of preparations for a possible mission to Mars, astronauts would visit and examine the rock for some 25 days, using the planned Orion spacecraft to make the trip.

The boulder-snatch concept is expected to cost $100 million more than the bagging concept, but it would be better for developing technologies that would have greater value for exploring Mars, explained Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s associate administrator, during a teleconference today. Moreover, he says, whereas a bagging mission might get only one chance to snare its target, a boulder-snatching spacecraft will have a chance to survey the asteroid ahead of time before picking a target, and it could make several attempts at grabbing a boulder. “I’m going to have multiple targets when I get there, is what it boils down to,” he says. “That was the better value, in my opinion, for what we’re trying to do.”
The leading target for ARM now is a 0.45-kilometer-wide carbonaceous C-type asteroid called 2008 EV5, Lightfoot says. The two other candidates are asteroids called Bennu and Itokawa, and ongoing searches are expected to yield one or two more candidates each year leading up to mission launch.

Scientists say that there is intrinsic interest in C-type asteroids, which have never been visited by a spacecraft. They are darker than many asteroids because of all the primitive carbonaceous material they hold. Some may contain hydrated minerals, or even water ice, says Tim Swindle, director of the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. “They definitely have the potential of being a dirtier version of a comet.”

But scientists have been skeptical about the mission, mostly because of concerns that its costs could end up threatening science missions, even though ARM is primarily designed to demonstrate capabilities for NASA’s human spaceflight program. Already, two science missions are planning on visiting a C-type asteroid. In December 2014, Japan’s space agency launched Hayabusa 2, which aims to return a few grams of asteroidal material to Earth in 2020. And in 2016, NASA plans to launch OSIRIS-REx, which aims to return at least 60 grams of material by 2023. “A lot of the wariness was that [ARM] would be funded out of science, and that the science return after going to other carbonaceous asteroids would not be that great,” Swindle says. “Everyone is going to remain wary until the mission has flown and the cost hasn’t come out of science one way or another.”