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

81 – 72  Lihue, Kauai
80 – 68  Honolulu, Oahu
8565  Kahului, Maui
84 – 71  Kailua Kona
83 – 66  Hilo, Hawaii

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


0.94  Mount Waialeale
2.55  Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
0.31  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.54  Puu Kukui, Maui
0.32  Kealakekua, Big Island


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


24  Port Allen, Kauai – ENE
22  Waianae Valley – NE
32  Molokai – NE
33  Lanai – NE
29  Kahoolawe – NE
30  Maalaea Bay, Maui – NW

27  Pali 2, Big Island – NE


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://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_west_loop-12.gif
A weakening cold front is located to our northwest

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GIFS/HAIR.JPG
Partly to mostly cloudy windward sides…with clear to partly
cloudy conditions along leeward beaches


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

Showers continue falling locally along our windward sides…some
have been generous – a few elsewhere


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…for windiest coasts and
channels around Maui County and the Big Island



The trade winds will falter some Tuesday, before increasing again Wednesday…then slowing down again 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 to the northeast and northwest, with associated ridges of high pressure to the north and northeast of Hawaii. At the same time, we have a low pressure system far to the northeast of the islands, with an dissipating cold front not far offshore to the northwest of the islands. Finally, there’s a small surface trough of low pressure over the western islands.
The trade winds are regaining some strength, although then faltering again by Tuesday, coming back a little through Thursday…before easing up again Friday into next weekend. 

The trade winds will bring windward showers locally…drier along our leeward beaches. As the trade wind flow remains alive, windward showers will continue to be quite active as well. A cold front is located to the northwest of the islands, although it will likely stall and dissipate before reaching Kauai. Nonetheless, we may see some increase in showers near Kauai and perhaps Oahu as it gets closer. The longer range outlook suggests that a notable area of potential showers may move into the state by Tuesday, with another round of enhanced showers Thursday into next Saturday.  I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui: The skies are mostly clear to partly cloudy over Maui early this Sunday morning, with still a few light showers here and there. The low temperature was 51.8 degrees here at my Kula weather tower at 6am, while it was 68 degrees down at the Kahului airport, 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 Lihue, Kauai. / Now at 915am, I can see clouds are coming over the island, with showers along the windward sides…sliding inland in places too.

~~~ It’s now mid-afternoon at around 305pm, until clear skies along the beaches, especially the south and west shores…with lots of clouds over and mountains and elsewhere in places. Here at my Kula weather tower, it’s partly to mostly cloudy, with a light mist coming down in an off and on manner. The air temperature was 70.3 degrees, with calm winds at the time of this writing.

~~~ We’re into the early evening hour now at 545pm, under partly cloudy skies, although there are cloudy skies prevailing along our windward sides…with falling showers. It looks as if we have many more showers taking aim along our windward sides over the next several days, and maybe longer. This is good news, and passing showers along our windward sides during the spring months, help to keep drought conditions away during our generally dry summer months. We just started to have a light shower at 630pm, and I can see some high cirrus clouds in the sky to the north…which may light up at sunset.

Friday Evening Film: There are several pretty good looking films out now, although one in particular, actually there are several, that are rather enticing. Jeff and I will see one called The Gunman, while Svetlana will see Cinderella. Actually, as it turned out, Svetlana came with us to see this film. This piece of work garnered low to very low grades according to the critics, although you can’t always believe what the reviews have to say. At any rate, The Gunman stars Sean Penn, Jasmine Trinca, Idris Elba, Javier Bardem, Mark Rylance, and Ray Winstone…among others. The synopsis: a former Special Forces soldier (Sean Penn), who has PTSD tries to reconnect with his longtime lover, but must first go on the run across Europe to clear his name.

~~~ This film checked in as a heavy weight, with all the violence that one would expect…and then a bit more than that! I only had to close my eyes once however, and it was when I thought a bull fighter was going to kill a bull in the ring. Fortunately, as both Jeff and Svetlana let me know afterwards, the bull survived…or at least they didn’t show that particular killing scene. Let’s face it, if we see Sean Penn in a film, we know it’s going to be edgy. On the other hand, you also somehow know that it will have a humanitarian bent, which this film had as well. It’s tempting to give too much as a viewer, just because Sean Penn is in the starring role somehow. And by the way, I felt that the leading role as Sean’s love interest in the film, perhaps wasn’t quite the right actress…as she left me feeling slightly let down. As a side note, there were more than enough shootouts as one would expect, and all those big guns were somehow made very loud…making lots of noise throughout.

As for grades, I wasn’t as impressed as Jeff, who gave it an A rating, while Svetlana came in with a B+…as I saw it as just a strong B film. In sum, I’m glad I had this experience, as I always like going out to dinner and seeing a film with my two good friends, although it wasn’t one of my favorite films of the year. If you’re so inclined after reading the above, and knowing full well the name of this film…here’s the trailer.


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:
Typhoon 04W (Maysak) remains 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: 
Climate change does not cause extreme winters, experts say Cold snaps like the ones that hit the eastern United States in the past winters are not a consequence of climate change. Scientists at ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology have shown that global warming actually tends to reduce temperature variability.


Cold snaps like the ones that hit the eastern United States in the past winters are not a consequence of climate change. Scientists at ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology have shown that global warming actually tends to reduce temperature variability.


Repeated cold snaps led to temperatures far below freezing across the eastern United States in the past two winters. Parts of the Niagara Falls froze, and ice floes formed on Lake Michigan. Such low temperatures had become rare in recent years. Pictures of icy, snow-covered cities made their way around the world, raising the question of whether climate change could be responsible for these extreme events.


It has been argued that the amplified warming of the Arctic relative to lower latitudes in recent decades has weakened the polar jet stream, a strong wind current several kilometres high in the atmosphere driven by temperature differences between the warm tropics and cold polar regions. One hypothesis is that a weaker jet stream may become more wavy, leading to greater fluctuations in temperature in mid-latitudes. Through a wavier jet stream, it has been suggested, amplified Arctic warming may have contributed to the cold snaps that hit the eastern United States.


Temperature range will decrease


Scientists at ETH Zurich and at the California Institute of Technology, led by Tapio Schneider, professor of climate dynamics at ETH Zurich, have come to a different conclusion. They used climate simulations and theoretical arguments to show that in most places, the range of temperature fluctuations will decrease as the climate warms. So not only will cold snaps become rarer simply because the climate is warming. Additionally, their frequency will be reduced because fluctuations about the warming mean temperature also become smaller, the scientists wrote in the latest issue of the Journal of Climate.


The study’s point of departure was that higher latitudes are indeed warming faster than lower ones, which means that the temperature difference between the equator and the poles is decreasing. Imagine for a moment that this temperature difference no longer exists. This would mean that air masses would have the same temperature, regardless of whether they flow from the south or north. In theory there would no longer be any temperature variability. Such an extreme scenario will not occur, but it illustrates the scientists’ theoretical approach.


Extremes will become rarer


Using a highly simplified climate model, they examined various climate scenarios to verify their theory. It showed that the temperature variability in mid-latitudes indeed decreases as the temperature difference between the poles and the equator diminishes. Climate model simulations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) showed similar results: as the climate warms, temperature differences in mid-latitudes decrease, and so does temperature variability, especially in winter.


Temperature extremes will therefore become rarer as this variability is reduced. But this does not mean there will be no temperature extremes in the future. “Despite lower temperature variance, there will be more extreme warm periods in the future because the Earth is warming,” says Schneider. The researchers limited their work to temperature trends. Other extreme events, such as storms with heavy rain or snowfall, can still become more common as the climate warms, as other studies have shown.


North-south shift makes the difference


And the jet stream? Schneider shrugs off the idea: “The waviness of the jet stream that makes our day-to-day weather does not change much.” Changes in the north-south difference in temperatures play a greater role in modifying temperature variability.


Schneider wants to explore the implications these results have in further studies. In particular, he wants to pursue the question of whether heatwaves in Europe may become more common because the frequency of blocking highs may increase. And he wants to find why these high pressure systems become stationary and how they change with the climate.