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

84 – 76  Lihue, Kauai
85 – 76  Honolulu, Oahu
87 – 75  Molokai
92 – 73  Kahului AP, Maui – record for Tuesday was 94…back in 1996
89 – 75  Kailua Kona
87 – 72  Hilo, Hawaii

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

7.67  Puu Opae, Kauai
2.51  Waipio, Oahu
0.20  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.11  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.65  Kula 1, Maui
1.79  Kapapala RAWS, Big Island

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

15  Moloaa Dairy, Kauai – NW
17  Makua Range, Oahu – SW
10  Molokai – SE
14  Lanai – SW
14  Kahoolawe – S
10  Hana, Maui – SE
18  PTA West, Big Island – NE

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

http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_west_loop-12.gif
 Tropical Storm 12E (Ignacio) continues spinning over the ocean
well to the east-southeast of Hawaii

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/EP12/refresh/EP1215W5_NL+gif/024011W5_NL_sm.gif

 Tropical Storm 12E (Ignacio)…continues to have its forecast
track pointing towards Hawaii – as a hurricane (H)

 

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/cpac/vis.jpg
There are numerous large areas of disturbed weather here
in the central Pacific…in almost all directions

Here’s a real time wind profile…so we can keep an eye on
approaching Tropical Storm Ignacio – to the east-southeast


http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/vis.jpg
Clear to mostly cloudy skies, towering cumulus and
thunderstorms offshore in the vicinity of the islands…
shifting over the islands locally at times


http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
There are showers forming over the islands, some
are heavy…causing floods – looping radar image

Flash Flood Watch…across the entire state –
through this evening

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Our winds will remain on the light side, generally from the southeast direction, with the trades returning later Thursday or Friday into the weekend…briefly. 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 moderately strong high pressure systems far to the north and northeast of the state. At the same time we see low pressure systems/troughs in all directions. Our winds will be kept on the lighter side of normal, as these numerous  low pressure systems continue to interrupt our normal trade wind flow. This light wind regime will keep very muggy conditions over us for several more days. The trades, although on the lighter side of normal, should return later this week, although likely won’t last long. As it stands now, a tropical cyclone is forecast to move close to, or by to our north or south early next week…our local winds then will depend greatly upon the eventual track near Hawaii.

Unsettled weather will remain over the state for another day. The general air flow over our area, continues to carry lots of moisture up from the deeper tropics. The air will feel very sultry during the days and nights too. There will continue to be off and on showers, and some possible thunderstorms over the islands at times too. We continue to have a Flash Flood Watch covering the entire state…which runs through Wednesday evening. Whatever thunderstorms and locally heavy rains that might move over the islands, would continue to prompt flood advisories here and there. As the trade winds return later Thursday into the weekend, the focus for showers will gradually shift over to the windward sides. However, these trades will be on the light side, so we may continue to see afternoon showers over the leeward interior sections despite the return of drier trade winds.

Tropical Storm 12E (ignacio) continues to spin in our direction…and may approach our area early next week. It appears that this tropical storm will strengthen into a hurricane Thursday. I know we’ve recently been through the worries with tropical depression Kilo, although now we’ll have to bring our focus back towards the east-southeast once again. This next system will be approaching, although at the moment, there’s no reason for great alarm. The reason behind my saying this, is simply because we’ve seen 3-4 tropical cyclones approaching our area lately, which were all at some point a threat to the islands…and they all passed harmlessly by offshore. However, it only takes one to cause a big problem, so we’ll be watching closely as TS Ignacio spins towards us…soon to be a hurricane. As it looks from here, we could turn very wet again by early next week, at least near the eastern islands…with more of those loud and bright thunderstorms roaming our local skies again then! Then there’s always that chance that Ignacio might pass by to the north or south of the islands, having various influences on our local weather. It’s too early to know the details, in terms of winds and rain, although not too early to be paying attention to the inevitable changes that will occur each day this week.

At the moment, and based on the most recent NHC advisory, TS Ignacio will reach category 1 hurricane strength within the next 24-36 hours. Thereafter, there will be some additional strengthening, bringing it up to a category 2 hurricane within 72 hours, Then, and this is where the better news begins, there could start to be a gradual weakening by Saturday, back down into a less dangerous category 1 hurricane. There are big questions that will arise as we move forward, and these will keep us guessing through much of the rest of this week. As we get towards the weekend, we’ll have a much better idea whether we should be battening down the hatches, or Ignacio will slide by offshore in one direction or the other…stay tuned please.

By the way, as long as we’re talking about storms and such…here’s a bit more: there’s an area of disturbed weather, to the east of TS Ignacio, that has an excellent chance of developing into a tropical depression soon. It’s being referred to as Invest 96E…as it moves generally west-northwest away from Mexico. Here’s a satellite image of this area…along with the computer models showing this potential storm’s path westward. It would be called tropical depression 13E if it develops as expected, and would take on the name tropical storm Jimena thereafter. It’s too early to know whether this system could push into our central Pacific or not, although at this point…there’s at least a possibility.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…high…100 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…100 percent

I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above and below, I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here on Maui…It’s 545am Tuesday morning, and for a change…it’s mostly clear! I’ll have more to say about what’s going on out there, once it gets a bit lighter. Looks like there’s some thin cirrus clouds around, which turned pink or orange at sunrise…very much like what we saw at sunset last evening. / It’s now 10am, and looks like a pretty normal summer day, despite the ongoing flash flood watch that remains active across all the islands until this evening. There remains lots of moisture in our part of the central Pacific, and with the daytime heating, it wouldn’t surprise me to see clouds gather over and around the mountains, potentially leading to some generous showers. / It’s now 1135am, and the clouds have increased quite a bit over the last hour, definitely! Looking up the mountain from here in Kula, the clouds are way darker than they were the last time I glanced up there. Shifting my focus down into the central valley, towards the West Maui Mountains, there are clouds stretching off in that direction, although with still lots of sunshine beaming down. Showers this afternoon? If someone asked me that, I’d have to say yes…at least locally.

– Now at 1205pm, the first drops of rain just arrived, along with slightly cooler air…which feels good. Would you believe it, it’s now pouring, three minutes later! That rain smell is so good! I just heard some thunder brewing up the mountain from here, just one clap, and then it was gone. This however, easily qualifies for thunderstorms this afternoon. Sometimes when I kidding a friend, and there’s just a couple of drops falling out of the sky, I’ll look at them and say, it’s raining, you know…as if its pouring or something. / It’s 310pm here in Kula, and the clouds are getting as dark as can be, you know what I’m talkin’ about…really dark. It just started raining, it was too dark not to rain! / It’s now 410pm, and it has been coming down in buckets the last 20 minutes…just starting to calm down a touch now. Meanwhile, it continues to be sunny and grand down in the lowlands towards the beaches…like night and day.

– We’re into the early evening hours now, and as I look down into the central valley, and over towards Kahului and Wailuku towns, and Kihei as well…I see lots of thick volcanic haze, better known as vog. The upcountry areas had lots of heavy rains at times, at least locally. As we approach sunset, there are still lots of heavy looking clouds hanging around. The small island of Lanai, not far from Maui, continues to have a flood advisory in effect until 815pm this evening. Speaking of Lanai and the West Maui Mountains, looking over that way, I see huge towering cumulus clouds and cumulonimbus clouds over both of those areas at sunset! No wonder there’s an active flood advisory…I’m sure heavy rain is falling from those cloud bases.

Just for the fun of it, as being a weatherman I’m into numbers…obviously. I just checked again, and during the last month, there have been 401,597 visits to this website. There have been 939,765 page impressions on this website during that same period. In terms of the number of clicks on the google ads on this site, there have been 2,168. Thank you very much for visiting online, and for occasionally clicking on a google ad…as that’s how I make a few bucks in return for my work.


World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

>>> Atlantic Ocean:

Tropical Storm 05L (Erika) remains active in the Atlantic Ocean, with sustained winds of 45 mph…and is located about 285 miles east-southeast of Antigua. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, and a satellite image. Here’s what the computer models are showing.

Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

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


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

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

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

>>> Eastern Pacific:

Tropical Storm 12E (Ignacio) remains active in the northeast Pacific, with sustained winds of 60 mph…and is located about 1425 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, and a satellite image. Here’s what the computer models are showing

1.)   Showers and thunderstorms associated with an area of low pressure located about 700 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico have become better organized since yesterday. Environmental conditions are conducive for additional development, and a tropical depression is expected to form later today or tonight while the low moves west-northwestward near 15 mph.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…high…100 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…100 percent

This area of disturbed weather will very likely develop into a tropical depression soon. It’s being referred to as Invest 96E…as it moves generally west-northwest away from Mexico. Here’s a satellite image of this area…along with how the computer models show this potential storms path westward. By the way, it would be called tropical depression 13E if it develops as expected, and could take on the name tropical storm Jimena thereafter.

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:

Tropical Depression 03C (Kilo) remains active, with sustained winds of 35 mph, and is located about 560 miles west-southwest of Barking Sands, Hawaii. Here’s the CPHC graphical track map, and a satellite image. Here’s what a couple of the computer models are showing.

Tropical Storm 04C (Loke) remains active, with sustained winds of 60 mph, and is located about 505 miles north of Midway Island. Here’s the CPHC graphical track map, and a satellite image. Here’s what the computer models are showing.

>>> Here’s a satellite image showing these areas

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: How a warming climate is impacting wild boar in Europe – Increasingly mild winters have caused an abundance of acorns and beech nuts in Europe’s woodlands, writes Paul Brown, triggering a wild boar population explosion – just one of the effects of warming climate on wildlife populations.

Wild boar populations in Europe are getting out of control – and scientists are blaming climate change.

There are now millions of wild boar spreading out from their preferred woodland habitat, moving into city suburbs, and even crossing national boundaries to countries that had thought they were extinct.

In some countries, notably France and Germany, which have always had wild boar populations in their forests, they are a major cause of road accidents.

France has an estimated two million boar, and the German state of Hesse alone has 180,000. Berlin, the German capital, is erecting boar fencing around its borders in an attempt to keep the animals out of the city.

Scientists from the Research Institute for Wildlife Ecology at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, report in the journal PLOS ONE that they chose the animal to study because “the wild boar has an enormous reproductive capacity, and thus the potential for remarkable population growth when environmental conditions become more favorable.”

Wild boar can have five or more young in a litter, can live as long as 12 years, and females can reach sexual maturity within their first year if there is plenty of food available.

Warmer weather means more nuts and acorns

The scientists believe that the increasingly frequent mild winters in Europe and the extra production of acorns and beechnuts by trees are aiding boar survival rates. Both factors are the result of climate change, they say.

The number of animals has been increasing since the 1980s. Because boars are secretive, nocturnal animals, the scientists had to use hunting records and road accidents to help count the animals in 12 European countries.

“Doing this, we were able to depict the growth of the wild boar population”, says the report’s lead author, Sebastian Vetter, an evolutionary biologist. “As mild winters are becoming more frequent, boar populations are also growing exponentially.”

Climate change is also having a direct effect on food supply, the authors say, with the increasing frequency of ‘mast years’ – years when trees produce huge quantities of acorns and nuts – also aiding the animals’ survival. They attribute the phenomenon to warming climate.

In severe winters, a large number of young from the previous summer used to die of cold and hunger, but the extra food supply available, even in cold spells, is enabling more to survive.

“Our analysis showed that the frequency of beech masting years has increased over the last decades, presumably due to climate change. This finding, together with the fact that cold winters had no negative effect on population growth when food resources were abundant, shows that the effect of climate change on population growth of wild boar is two-fold:

“Cold winters have become rarer and, on top of this, the remaining severe winters became increasingly ineffective in diminishing wild boar populations because of the increasing frequency of masting years. In such years, beech or oak trees produce vast amounts of energy rich seeds that are available from autumn until spring in the following year.

“If abundant, this food source likely enables juveniles to cope even with high thermoregulatory costs in a severe winter, and adults to accumulate high amounts of body energy reserves for reproduction in the following year. This result also indicates that low survival in cold winters is apparently not caused by a limited thermogenic capacity.

“Instead, increased winter mortality seems to be caused by a negative energy balance, i.e., when high thermoregulatory costs, due to severe cold, cannot be matched by the available food, especially when high caloric seeds are absent.”

From Italy to Sweden, populations surge

Wild boars are one of the most widely distributed of animals, with their numbers varying between northern and southern latitudes. However, the survival rate of boar populations in Europe seems to be increasing across all countries.

One of the reasons for the wider spread of boar populations has been the fashion for their meat. Wild boar farms have been established in countries where the species had long ago been hunted to extinction. But farmers, unfamiliar with the animals, were not prepared for their ability to break down or jump fences as high as two metres, and many boars escaped into the wild.

Sweden, for example, had no wild boar 10 years ago, but now has an estimated 150,000 in its forests. The UK also has a small but well-entrenched boar population for the first time in 500 years.

Italy, well to the south, has always had wild boar, but has also seen a huge growth in their numbers. There are now estimated to be between 600,000 and 1 million animals. Some are seen on the outskirts of Rome, Genoa and Naples, where they eat from dustbins.