Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha Paragraphs / March 9-10, 2015

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

77 – 59  Lihue, Kauai
78 – 61  Honolulu, Oahu
74 – 58  Molokai AP
77 – 64  Kahului, Maui
73 – 68  Kailua Kona
71 – 66  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.41  Kilohana, Kauai
0.27  Hakipuu Mauka, Oahu
0.11  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.20  Kaupo Gap, Maui
1.68  Laupahoehoe, Big Island

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

28  Mana, Kauai – NW
27  Waianae Valley – NNE
22  Molokai – NNW
23  Lanai – NE
22  Kahoolawe – NE
20  Maalaea Bay, Maui – NNE
42  Nene Cabin, Big Island – NW

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 large swath of thick clouds, oriented northeast to southwest,
overlies part of the eastern islands


Partly to mostly cloudy conditions over the state…much of which
consists of the deep higher level clouds, although there are
showery clouds over and around the Big Island

Most of the showers in the state are concentrated
around the Big Island and offshore

Here’s the looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

The Mauna Kea Summit…on the Big Island of Hawaii
High Wind Warning – 50-60 mph winds…80+ gusts
Winter Storm Watch…Big Island summits

The cool north to northeasterly winds will continue through Thursday…then finally shifting back towards a more customary easterly trade wind direction 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 far to the northwest and northeast of the islands. At the same time, we have a gale low pressure system to the north-northeast of the islands…moving northeast. The placement of this low pressure area, along with its associated fronts and troughs, is helping to keep cool north to northeast breezes blowing across our area of the central Pacific. The outlook calls for more slightly chilly north to northeast breezes continuing. As we get into Friday and the weekend, a more easterly trade wind air flow will finally arrive...ushering in warmer weather finally.

The Big Island is the focus for most of our showers at the moment…with just a few showers elsewhere. The current rainfall pattern has light showers falling over some parts of the Big Island, while the rest of the state is much drier. The northerly breezes will carry some of these showers to the windward sides on the other islands, although not many. Meanwhile, the considerable cloud cover will continue to dim and filter our Hawaiian sunshine over the next several days, especially over the eastern half of the state. It appears that the drier conditions statewide will be short-lived, at least over the Big Island and probably Maui, as more showers arrive over these eastern islands early Wednesday into Thursday night. The long range models suggest the return of more classic trade wind conditions Friday into the weekend, with drier and warmer conditions in general. 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 still cloudy here on Maui before sunrise, although very little rainfall is occurring. The winds are generally quite light, although as they’re still arriving from a more northerly direction than usual…there’s still a definite chill in the air. The low temperature was 52.9 degrees here at my weather tower in Kula, under cloudy and foggy skies. It was 68 degrees down at the Kahului airport, 64 at the Hana airport, and 34 degrees atop the Haleakala Crater at the same time. The warmest low temperature around the state was 69 degrees in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island…while the coolest was 59 at the Lihue AP on Kauai.

~~~ It turned out to be partly cloudy in general across Maui County through the afternoon hours, and still a bit cool with the wind chill…and the continued north to northeasterly breezes.

~~~ It’s now 555pm in the early evening, under continued partly cloudy skies, and cooler than normal air temperatures, although we have to remember that we still are still in our winter season. It looks like we’ll continue have cooler than normal temperatures for a couple more days. The returning trade winds Friday onwards will bring back warmer weather, and especially if we can get out from under these prevailing high clouds. Kauai and Oahu have gotten sunnier the last couple of days, as the high cloud deck continues to gradually work its way eastward. As noted above, Maui County and the Big Island will get back into a wet weather pattern early Wednesday through Thursday night. At the moment, lots of the clouds over Maui consist of the high level cirrus, and the middle level altocumulus clouds. These are both rather famous for bringing good colorful sunsets…keep an eye out. BTW, here in Kula at my weather tower, the air temperature is a cold 54.3 degrees at 635pm.

>>> 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 17P (Pam) remains active in the Southwest Indian Ocean, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with the NOAA satellite image.

>>> North and South Indian Oceans: Tropical Cyclone 16S (Haliba) is dissipating in the South Indian Ocean, here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with the NOAA satellite image.  Final Warning

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

Interesting: CO2 increase may intensify future droughts in tropics – A new study suggests that increases in atmospheric CO2 could intensify extreme droughts in tropical and subtropical regions — such as Australia, the southwest and central United States, and southern Amazonia — at much a faster rate than previously anticipated, explains University of Texas at Austin professor Rong Fu in a commentary in the March 9 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences..

Fu, a professor at the university’s Jackson School of Geosciences, writes about a new study by William K.M. Lau of the University of Maryland and Kyu-Myong Kim of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, explaining that it shows for the first time through computer climate modeling that the Hadley Circulation will intensify as the world warms. The study, “Robust Hadley Circulation changes and increasing global dryness due to CO2 warming from CMIP5 model projections,” was posted online Feb. 23.

The Hadley Circulation, associated with the prevailing trade winds in the tropics, is an atmospheric air current centered around the equator that affects areas between the latitudes of about 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south.

The Hadley Circulation influences the distribution of rainfall, clouds and relative humidity over half of Earth’s surface. It can expand or contract in a warmer or colder global climate, leading to substantial changes of regional rainfall. Such changes have been linked to the collapse of the ancient Maya civilization.

During the past decade or two, the Hadley Circulation has become stronger and expanded toward the poles at a rate faster than predicted by global climate models, contributing to increased droughts over many subtropical regions and increased rainfall in equatorial regions. Past studies have attributed the intensifying of the Hadley Circulation to natural decadal climate variability, because climate models have predicted that the Hadley Circulation will weaken in the future as climate changes. But Lau’s and Kim’s work found that the Hadley Circulation intensified in warmer climate, which is expected to continue.

“This is the first study that suggests a possible intensification of droughts in the tropic-subtropical margins in warmer climate. The finding is critical to understanding what the world will be like as the climate continues to change,” Fu said. “Will the Hadley Circulation continue to expand? Could the intensification of droughts over the tropics and subtropics be a new norm? These are questions that need to be answered.”