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

85 – 73  Lihue, Kauai
88 – 76  Honolulu, Oahu
8472  Molokai
86 – 73  Kahului, Maui

89 – 78  Kailua Kona
84 – 70  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.30  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.83  Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
0.22  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.83  Hana AP, Maui
0.47  Kapapala Ranch RAWS, Big Island

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

21  Poipu, Kauai – NE
35  Kuaokala,
Oahu – N 
22  Molokai – NE
27  Lanai – NE

24  Kahoolawe – NE
22  Kapalua, Maui – NE

27  Kealakomo, Big Island – NNW

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
We see what’s left of former tropical depression Enrique
well to our east, along with former tropical depression
Dolores offshore from Southern California…
both in the eastern Pacific

more information below

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/cpac/vis.jpg
We see the swirl of clouds associated with former
tropical depression Enrique to the east of us
Looping version


http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/vis.jpg
Scattered showers moving across parts of the state…
especially the eastern islands
Looping version


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

A few showers over the ocean…passing over the islands locally
looping radar image


~~~
Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



The trade winds will continue to blow…becoming lighter through the first half of the new week. 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 a fairly strong, near 1035 millibar high pressure system to the northeast of the state…moving southeast. Meanwhile, there are tropical disturbances/troughs west and east of the state. The trade winds are expected to continue, although become somewhat lighter through the middle of the new week, resulting in a mixture of light trades…and daytime sea breezes. The forecast has the trade winds rebounding Thursday into next weekend.

Scattered showers locally into Monday. Most of these showers will fall along our windward coasts and slopes at night, with some over the interior sections during the afternoons here and there too. There’s a chance that a few of these afternoon showers will be enhanced enough, that they could become quite generous…with even a chance of thunder on the Kona slopes of the Big Island. This modified convective weather pattern will last through about Wednesday. As we push into the second half of the new week, a more typical trade wind weather will return, with windward showers taking over. There’s the chance that the remnant moisture associated with former TC Enrique, may get carried into the state on the trade winds later in the new week…stay tuned. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above and below, I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui…it’s 540am Sunday morning, skies are clear to partly cloudy over the the island…with a few showers falling along the windward side.
The air temperature here in Kula, at my upcountry weather tower was 53.6 degrees, while it was 75 down at the Kahului airport, 72 out in Hana…with a 46 degree reading up at the summit of the Haleakala Crater at near the same time.

It’s 5pm now, just leaving late afternoon and pushing into the early evening time frame. It’s been rather cloudy all afternoon, if not most of the day, with a couple of light showers up here in Kula. The air temperature is 72 degrees, which feels very comfortable, compared to a warmer 84 down in Kahului, and 73 out in Hana…and 52 atop the Haleakala Crater.

Friday Evening FilmThere are a whole host of new films out this week, several of which I’ve been looking forward to seeing. My friend Jeff and I saw one of these called Mr. Holmes, starring Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Hiroyuki Sanada, Milo Parker, and Hattie Morahan…among others. The synopsis: Mr. Holmes is a new twist on the world’s most famous detective. 1947, an aging Sherlock Holmes returns from a journey to Japan, where, in search of a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities, he has witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare. Now, in his remote seaside farmhouse, Holmes faces the end of his days tending to his bees, with only the company of his housekeeper and her young son, Roger. Grappling with the diminishing powers of his mind, Holmes comes to rely upon the boy as he revisits the circumstances of the unsolved case that forced him into retirement, and searches for answers to the mysteries of life and love – before it’s too late.

I wasn’t too sure of what to expect from this film, although I had a feeling it might be very good…and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. As a matter of fact, both Jeff and I gave it an A grade, which neither one of us dispenses lightly. It was unavoidable to experience the sadness of aging by seeing this film, although the smart script kept it afloat very well. It was a period drama, which was anchored in very large part…by the stellar performance of 75 year old Ian Mckellen. As a matter of fact, each of the actors gave noteworthy performances, with not a bad apple in the bunch. There were deep emotions being displayed on the screen, which were easily felt by sitting in the audience, and at times they were very touching. I’m so glad that I decided to see this film, as I considered it a splendid piece of work, one of the best in a while. There was a certain sensitivity that ran throughout this film, that I appreciated very much. If you’d care to take a quick peek…here’s the trailer.


World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

>>> Atlantic Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones

>>> Caribbean Sea: There are no active tropical cyclones

>>>
Gulf of Mexico:
There are no active tropical cyclones

Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico

Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 5 days over the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea or Atlantic Ocean


Here’s the link to the
National Hurricane Center (NHC)

>>> Eastern Pacific: There are no active tropical cyclones

1.)  Showers and thunderstorms associated with a broad area of low pressure located about 600 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, have become a little less organized since yesterday. Strong upper-level winds are expected to decrease and become more conducive for development on Tuesday, and a tropical depression is still likely to form within the next couple of days while the system moves west-northwestward to northwestward at 10 to 15 mph.

When this system becomes a little more organized, and becomes a tropical depression, it will take on the title TD 07E…and if it strengthens into a tropical storm, it will take on the name TS Felicia. The models show it remaining offshore from the Mexican coast, taking a more or less west-northwesterly track.

Here’s a satellite image, along with the animated version…and what the hurricane models are showing

* Formation chance through 48 hours…high…90 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…90 percent

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
: There are no active tropical cyclones

Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)

>>>
Northwest Pacific Ocean:


Tropical Storm 1C (Halola) remains active…located about 334 NM east-southeast of Iwo To.

Here’s the JTWC graphical
track map, along with a satellite image of this gradually strengthening tropical cyclone. Here’s what the computer 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 clouds get their brightness – How clouds form and how they help set the temperature of the earth are two of the big remaining questions in climate research. Now, a study of clouds over the world’s remotest ocean shows that ocean life is responsible for up to half the cloud droplets that pop in and out of existence during summer.


The study, which appears online July 17 in Science Advances, combines computer modeling with satellite data over the Southern Ocean, the vast sea surrounding Antarctica. It reveals how tiny natural particles given off by marine organisms — airborne droplets and solid particles called aerosols — nearly double cloud droplet numbers in the summer, which boosts the amount of sunlight reflected back to space. And for the first time, this study estimates how much solar energy that equates to over the whole Southern Ocean.

“It is a strong effect,” said climate scientist Susannah Burrows at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “But it makes sense because most of the area down there is ocean, with strong winds that kick up a lot of spray and lots of marine microorganisms producing these particles. And continental aerosol sources are mostly so far away that they only have a limited impact. Really the marine aerosols are running the show there.”

Burrows and co-author Daniel McCoy at the University of Washington worked with other colleagues from the University of Leeds, Los Alamos National Laboratory, UW and PNNL to explore the atmospheric show-runners.

Ocean born

Although the Southern Ocean’s borders have yet to be settled on by the International Hydrographic Organization, it comprises the southernmost parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, and is one of the cloudiest places on Earth. Important to the Southern Hemisphere’s atmospheric and oceanic circulation, Southern Ocean clouds might also help determine how sensitive Earth is to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.

But to understand that climate sensitivity, scientists need to improve their understanding of how tiny aerosol particles brighten clouds by serving as seeds for cloud droplets. Over land, aerosols arise from vegetative matter, pollution, and dust. Sea spray shoots sea salt — a large source of ocean aerosols — into the atmosphere, but marine organisms also produce aerosols, most of which evaporate into the air.

But studying marine aerosols has been hard because they get overpowered by man-made pollutants in measurements near coastlines. Even so, studying marine aerosols in the Southern Ocean has been difficult as well. 

Satellites can’t tell different kinds of aerosols apart, and past satellite measurements of cloud droplets in regions near the poles had seasonal issues.

Aerosols have their own issues. Sea salt is one aerosol, and the ocean harbors marine organisms called phytoplankton that ultimately yield two more kinds of aerosols important to cloud formation — sulfates and organic matter aerosols. Previous studies, however, only examined how cloud droplet numbers correlated with chlorophyll — an easy-to-measure molecule involved in photosynthesis that gives plants their green color — as a proxy for marine life and were unable to nail down the individual roles of actual aerosols.

To flesh out the role of different aerosols, Burrows and colleagues used computer models to simulate both organic matter and sulfates, as well as sea salt. In addition, Burrows, McCoy and colleagues turned to a new set of satellite measurements of cloud droplets. The data set fixes the seasonal issues with the Southern Ocean and covers the latitudes between 35 degrees south and 55 degrees south.

“Satellite data allows us to observe events that occur over the course of months and on a scale of thousands of kilometers in the remotest regions on the planet,” said UW’s McCoy. “It really gives us an unparalleled glimpse of the Earth System’s complexity.”