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

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

80 – 68  Lihue, Kauai
83 – 71  Honolulu, Oahu
80 – 69  Molokai AP
82 – 69  Kahului, Maui
86 – 72  Kailua Kona
82 – 68  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.41  Kilohana, Kauai
1.46  Poamoho RG 1, Oahu
5.83  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.17  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
1.89  Hana AP, Maui
0.76  Honokaa, Big Island

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

36  Barking Sands, Kauai – N
31  Kalaeloa, Oahu – NNE
24  Molokai – NNE
28  Lanai – NE
30  Kahoolawe – NNE
28  Kapalua, Maui – NE
27  Kohala Range, Big Island – SSW

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

We see a low pressure systemfar  to the northeast…with its fragmenting
late season cold front stalling over the Big Island

Cold front’s clouds mostly hung-up along the windward
sides of Maui and the Big Island – looping version
of the above image

Showers are falling over the nearby ocean…spreading over
the islands locally – mostly the Big Island

Here’s the looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands

Small Craft Advisory…coastal and channels waters around
parts of Maui and the Big Island

Celebrating this Memorial Day Weekend

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

North to northeast breezes through Monday, then lighter winds Tuesday through Thursday…with returning light to moderately strong trades Friday into next 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 located far to the northwest and northeast of the state, along with a cold front getting ready to stall just south and southeast of the Big Island Sunday. The forecast has north to northeasterly winds in its wake…through the holiday on Monday. These rather unusual breezes, for this time of the year at least, will keep our air temperatures slightly cooler than normal.

A late season cold front is now moving across Big Island…with a few showers to the windward sides of the islands. As the winds come in from the north to northeast in the wake of the frontal passage, we’ll see the front’s showers deposited mostly along the north and northeast facing coasts and slopes. Drier air is coming into the Kauai, Oahu and Maui County, while windward showers on the Big Island remain active for the time being.  A new area of modest showers is expected to arrive early Sunday, although this shouldn’t be anything significant. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui...early Saturday morning before sunrise, skies are mostly cloudy, with showers falling locally. It’s been lightly raining here at my place in Kula, and according to what I see on radar, the bulk of this wet weather is occurring along the windward sides. The air temperature here in Kula at 535am was 60.8 degrees, 70 at both the Kahului AP, 70 as well out in Hana, and 57 at the Kaupo Gap …while it was a cooler 41 degrees up at the Haleakala Crater. / Last night when I got dropped off at the Institute of Astronomy (IFA), where I’d left my car, I barely made it home to Kula! My car was having engine trouble, and I was lucky to have made it up the hill. I’m going to have to get downtown to rent a car this morning, although I’m not sure how that’s going to happen yet.

– We’re into the middle of the afternoon now, under mostly cloudy skies, and relatively cool northerly breezes. As the cold front came through Maui early today, it brought light to moderately heavy showers for the most part. The moisture levels in the wake of the cold front, is quite a bit drier…with the showers not over here in Kula.

– We’ve pushed into the early evening hours now, still under mostly cloudy skies, and relatively cool north winds. The air temperature here in Kula at around 6pm was only 61.9 degrees, which is several degrees cooler than it normally is at this time. It’s getting a bit foggy, with a little mist being blown in this area now too. 

Friday Evening Film: There were several new films opening here in Maui, several of which looked like they would be fun to see. I went to see the one called Far From the Madding Crowd, starring Cary Mulligan, Tom Sturridge, Michael Sheen, Matthias Schoenaerts, Juno Temple, and Jessica Barden…among many others. The synopsis: based on the literary classic by Thomas Hardy, this is a story of independent, beautiful and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan), who attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a sheep farmer, captivated by her fetching willfulness; Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), a handsome and reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), a prosperous and mature bachelor. This timeless story of Bathsheba’s choices and passions explores the nature of relationships and love – as well as the human ability to overcome hardships through resilience and perseverance.

The critics and viewers are both giving this film good ratings, and the trailer makes it look quite interesting. This turned out to be a special film, although filled with endless romantic entanglement…which lead to the maximum amount of melodrama. The characters were exceptional, and especially the part played by Cary Mulligan as the leading lady. I really enjoyed the sound track, and the English setting, which gave the film such a depth of feeling. The long and short of all this is, that Cary Mulligan was so attractive, that men were falling for her left and right, and she had to just deal with it…which is what this film is all about. I was with three others, and everyone thought quite highly of it. Personally, I gave it a strong B+ grade, perhaps just shy of the top spot. If you like love stories, along with all the drama that they provide, this may be one not to miss. I was touched by the film, and very glad I made the effort to see it. It was certainly a different type of film, than the numberless action movies that I end up seeing so often. It was a great change of pace, and I wish there were more like this one coming through Maui theaters.

>>> 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: There are no active tropical cyclones

TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL

For the eastern North Pacific…east of 140 degrees west longitude:

1.) An elongated area of low pressure located about 1400 miles
southeast of the Big Island of Hawaii continues to become less
defined. The associated shower activity also remains limited,
and the chance for this system to become a tropical cyclone
development is decreasing. The disturbance is moving slowly
westward and could cross into the Central Pacific basin later
today.

(Invest 91E)

* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...30 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days...low...30 percent

2.) Another broad and elongated area of low pressure located about 1500
miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California is
moving west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph. Although shower activity
remains disorganized, some slow development of this system could
occur during the next day or so.  After that time, however, the
disturbance is expected to move over cooler water and into a region
of less favorable upper-level winds, which should inhibit
development.

(Invest 90E)

* Formation chance through 48 hours...medium...50 percent 

* Formation chance through 5 days...medium...50 percent

3.) An area of low pressure is expected to form several hundred
miles south of the coast of Mexico during the next few days.
Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for
gradual development of the system after mid-week while it moves
west-northwestward to northwestward.

* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...near 0 percent 
* Formation chance through 5 days...low...30 percent

This NHC image shows these two disturbances described above – along with the 5-day outlook

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: US Exposure to Extreme Heat is on the Rise – U.S. residents’ exposure to extreme heat could increase four- to six-fold by mid-century, due to both a warming climate and a population that’s growing especially fast in the hottest regions of the country, according to new research.

The study, by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the City University of New York (CUNY), highlights the importance of considering societal changes when trying to determine future climate impacts.

“Both population change and climate change matter,” said NCAR scientist Brian O’Neill, one of the study’s co-authors. “If you want to know how heat waves will affect health in the future, you have to consider both.”

Extreme heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather-related event, and scientists generally expect the number of deadly heat waves to increase as the climate warms. The new study, published May 18 in the journal Nature Climate Change, finds that the overall exposure of to these future heat waves would be vastly underestimated if the role of population changes were ignored.

The total number of people exposed to extreme heat is expected to increase the most in cities across the country’s southern reaches, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Tampa, and San Antonio.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR’s sponsor, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

CLIMATE, POPULATION, AND HOW THEY INTERACT

For the study, the research team used 11 different high-resolution simulations of future temperatures across the United States between 2041 and 2070, assuming no major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The simulations were produced with a suite of global and regional climate models as part of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program.

Using a newly developed demographic model, the scientists also studied how the U.S. population is expected to grow and shift regionally during the same time period, assuming current migration trends within the country continue.

Total exposure to extreme heat was calculated in “person-days” by multiplying the number of days when the temperature is expected to hit at least 95 degrees by the number of people who are projected to live in the areas where extreme heat is occurring.

The results are that the average annual exposure to extreme heat in the United States during the study period is expected to be between 10 and 14 billion person-days, compared to an annual average of 2.3 billion person-days between 1971 and 2000.

Of that increase, roughly a third is due solely to the warming climate (the increase in exposure to extreme heat that would be expected even if the population remained unchanged). Another third is due solely to population change (the increase in exposure that would be expected if climate remained unchanged but the population continued to grow and people continued to moved to warmer places). The final third is due to the interaction between the two (the increase in exposure expected because the population is growing fastest in places that are also getting hotter).

“We asked, ‘Where are the people moving? Where are the climate hot spots? How do those two things interact?'” said NCAR scientist Linda Mearns, also a study co-author. “When we looked at the country as a whole, we found that each factor had relatively equal effect.”

At a regional scale, the picture is different. In some areas of the country, climate change packs a bigger punch than population growth and vice versa.

For example, in the U.S. Mountain region—defined by the Census Bureau as the area stretching from Montana and Idaho south to Arizona and New Mexico—the impact of a growing population significantly outstrips the impact of a warming climate. But the opposite is true in the South Atlantic region, which encompasses the area from West Virginia and Maryland south through Florida.

Exposure vs. vulnerability

Regardless of the relative role that population or climate plays, some increase in total exposure to extreme heat is expected in every region of the continental United States. Even so, the study authors caution that exposure is not necessarily the same thing as vulnerability.

“Our study does not say how vulnerable or not people might be in the future,” O’Neill said. “We show that heat exposure will go up, but we don’t know how many of the people exposed will or won’t have air conditioners or easy access to public health centers, for example.”

The authors also hope the study will inspire other researchers to more frequently incorporate social factors, such as population change, into studies of climate change impacts.

“There has been so much written regarding the potential impacts of climate change, particularly as they relate to physical climate extremes,” said Bryan Jones, a postdoctoral researcher at the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research and lead author of the study. “However, it is how people experience these extremes that will ultimately shape the broader public perception of climate change.”