Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha Paragraphs / March 4-5, 2015

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

76 – 71  Lihue, Kauai
78 – 73  Honolulu, Oahu
72 – 66  Molokai AP
76 – 72  Kahului, Maui
80 – 71  Kailua Kona
75 – 66  Hilo, Hawaii

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

1.45  Kilohana, Kauai
0.41  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
12.97 Puu Alii, Molokai!
0.50  Lanai
0.38  Kahoolawe
5.37  Kahakuloa, Maui
3.36  Hilo AP, Big Island

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

33  Barking Sands, Kauai – N
25  Makua Range – ESE
21  Molokai – N
20  Lanai – NE
27  Kahoolawe – NE
16  Maalaea Bay, Maui – NE
36 Kealakomo, Big Island – N

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

Cloudy skies over most of the state thanks to a trough of low
pressure influencing our area – cool temperatures



Thick layered clouds, Kauai is now out from under
these heavy clouds…which will be followed by Oahu

Lots of showers along the windward coasts and slopes, elsewhere
at times too…most actively from Maui County to the Big Island

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

>The Mauna Kea Summit…on the Big Island of Hawaii<

Small Craft Advisory…strong trade winds across
windiest coasts and channel waters

Trade winds lasting into next week…strong and gusty at times locally. 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 far to the northwest and northeast of the islands. At the same time, we have a surface low pressure system to the northeast of the islands, which is moving away towards the northeast. This developing gale low has a trailing trough of low pressure near the Big Island. The trades will prevail through the rest of this week, becoming rather blustery at times.

Rainfall, some generous…mostly along the windward sides from Maui County through the Big Island. Here’s the looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands. The atmosphere continues to be shower prone over some of the islands, and will remain that way into Thursday morning…with some localized heavy showers.  The trade winds will bring most of these showers to our windward sides, although not exclusively. It appears that Thursday through Saturday may turn temporarily drier, although with more heavy rains and possible thunderstorms arriving Sunday into early next week over the eastern side of the state. As this isn’t enough, the models are also pointing out another possible increase in showers around next Wednesday into Thursday…stay tuned. 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 skies are cloudy here on Maui before sunrise…with rain falling. The winds are locally gusty early this morning, with a low temperature of 56 degrees here at my weather tower in Kula. It was 69 degrees down at the Kahului airport near the ocean, with 68 degrees at the Hana airport, and 39 degrees atop the Haleakala Crater at the same time. The warmest low temperature around the state was 76 degrees at Kailua Kona on the Big Island.

~~~ It’s now early afternoon at near 1pm, under totally cloudy skies, light to moderately strong winds…and light to moderately heavy rains. Molokai has received by far the most rainfall, which is approaching 13.00″! Looking out over the island of Maui County, from here in upcountry Kula, it’s way cloudy, on all levels of the atmosphere, with continuous rainy weather firmly in place at the time of this writing. Looking at the satellite and radar images above, it looks as if there isn’t going to be much change in this reality through the rest of the day into the night.  We have our winds coming in from the north to northeast, which is making for a relatively chilly day. There’s a large plume of tropical moisture being carried over us, which is being set to showers and rain, thanks to cold air aloft…associated with an upper level trough of low pressure.

~~~ We’re now into the early evening hours, under a continued cloud cover, most of which is middle and higher level clouds. The rainfall has been steadily falling today, varying between light and moderately heavy for the most part. I was out around the island today, first in Haiku for a haircut this morning, and then over to Kihei this afternoon for a dermatology appointment. I spend time in between these two journeys, here in Kula, and found light to moderately heavy rains everywhere I went…with a light shower still falling here in Kula as we head towards the sunset hour. It was a cool day, what with the cloud cover, and our winds coming out of the north to north-northeast directions. / Now at 815pm, it’s still raining, and its chilly too, at least tropically cool at 57.2 degrees.

~~~ Here’s a weather product that I produced for the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) this morning

>>> 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: There are no active tropical cyclones

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

Interesting:  Combined Arctic ice observations show decades of loss – It’s no surprise that Arctic sea ice is thinning. What is new is just how long, how steadily, and how much it has declined. University of Washington researchers compiled modern and historic measurements to get a full picture of how Arctic sea ice thickness has changed.

The results, published this month in The Cryosphere, show a thinning in the central Arctic Ocean of 65 percent between 1975 and 2012. September ice thickness, when the ice cover is at a minimum, is 85 percent thinner for the same 37-year stretch.

“The ice is thinning dramatically,” said lead author Ron Lindsay, a climatologist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. “We knew the ice was thinning, but we now have additional confirmation on how fast, and we can see that it’s not slowing down.”

The study helps gauge how much the climate has changed in recent decades, and helps better predict an Arctic Ocean that may soon be ice-free for parts of the year.

The project is the first to combine all the available observations of Arctic sea ice thickness. The earlier period from 1975 to 1990 relies mostly on under-ice submarines. Those records are less common since 2000, but have been replaced by a host of airborne and satellite measurements, as well as other methods for gathering data directly on or under the ice.

“A number of researchers were lamenting the fact that there were many thickness observations of sea ice, but they were scattered in different databases and were in many different formats,” Lindsay said. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funded the effort to compile the various records and match them up for comparison.

The data also includes the NASA IceSat satellite that operated from 2003 to 2008, IceBridge aircraft-based measurements that NASA is conducting until its next satellite launches, long-term under-ice moored observations in the Beaufort Sea from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and other measures from aircraft and instruments anchored to the seafloor.

The older submarine records were unearthed for science by former UW professor Drew Rothrock, who used the U.S. Navy submarine measures of ice thickness to first establish the thinning of the ice pack through the 1990s. Vessels carried upward-looking sonar to measure the ice draft so they knew where they could safely surface. Further analysis of those records found a 36 percent reduction in the average thickness in the quarter century between 1975 and 2000.