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

85 – 74  Lihue, Kauai
90 – 75  Honolulu, Oahu – the record high temperature for Thursday was 92
84 75   Molokai
90 – 76  Kahului AP, Maui
the record high temperature for Thursday was 94
91 – 77  Kailua Kona AP
87 – 73  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.19  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.23  Tunnel RG, Oahu
0.19  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.04  Kahoolawe
3.94  Puu Kukui, Maui
1.40  Piihonua, Big Island

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

16  Poipu, Kauai – NE
35  Kuaokala,
Oahu – NE
24  Molokai – ENE
28  Lanai – NE

33  Kahoolawe – ENE
27  Kahului AP, Maui – NE

27  Upolu AP, Big Island – NE

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
Clouds and showers west and southeast

Here’s a wind profile…of the area around the islands

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/cpac/vis.jpg
Thunderstorms offshore to the west,
southwest and well southeast

 

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/vis.jpg
Generally clear to partly cloudy skies, with showery
clouds keeping the west side of the Big Island wet – with
a thin area of high cirrus over the leeward waters


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

There are some showers offshore…forming over
the Big Island too –
looping radar image


 

Small Craft Advisory…windiest coasts and
channels around Maui County and the Big Island

High Surf Advisory…surf building along our
south shores through 6pm

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



The moderately strong trade winds will remain in place through the weekend…into next week. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a wind profiler of the central Pacific. We find high pressure to the northwest through northeast of the state, shielding us from low pressure systems…and their associated colds fronts further to the northwest and north. Our winds are arriving from the trade wind direction, and will continue to do so through the rest of the week…into next week. This in turn will keep a late summer trade wind weather pattern in place, until autumn begins on the 22nd here in the islands.

Generally dry weather, with periods of showers along our windward sides…increasing after the weekend. Satellite imagery shows very few clouds in our area at the time of this writing, which will limit showers for the time being. The daytime heating of the islands will prompt clouds around the mountains locally however, with a few showers during the afternoon. These afternoon showers will be most active along the Kona coast and slopes. Things will remain fairly normal through the rest of the week, with those periodic showers arriving along the windward coasts and slopes. Then, as we move into the first half of next week, we may find a period of increased windward showers.

Here on MauiIt’s 545am Thursday morning, it looks mostly clear in the still faint early morning light…with a few clouds around the edges. It remains a nice morning, seasonably warm, and lots of warm sunshine beaming down.

We’re into the later afternoon hours now, at 415pm, under mostly clear to partly cloudy skies. It’s interesting, as I look over towards the windward side of east Maui, I see taller than normal cumulus cells, being carried along in the moderately strong trade wind breezes. The thing is, is that these cells are leaning over at almost a 45 degree angle, with the tops lagging well behind the base of the cell. Here on Maui it’s dry for the most part, while heavy rains continue to fall along the Kona coast and upslope from there…all the way up into the Kohala District.

It’s now early evening, and skies remain mostly clear to partly cloudy, and I don’t see any showers within my view from here in Kula. It was a nice day, a nice summer day, and finally…nothing unusual about it for a change. It looks like the trade winds will continue well into the future, which is a bit of a change from what we’ve seen much of this summer. We’re on the home stretch in terms of summer, as the fall season begins in less than a week. Speaking of fall, here’s a heads up that I’ll be going on vacation late in October…which is still a long ways from now. One more thing, I see an area of high cirrus clouds off towards the southwest and south, which may very well light up nicely at sunset.

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


World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

>>> Atlantic Ocean:

Tropical Depression 09L remains active, located 955 NM east-northeast of the Lesser Antilles, with sustained winds of 30 mph. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this weak system…along with what the computer models show

Tropical Depression 10L is now active, located 870 NM west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, with sustained winds of 30 mph. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this system 

1.)  A large area of disturbed weather extending from the eastern Gulf of Mexico across the Florida peninsula and into the adjacent Atlantic Ocean is associated with a broad surface trough interacting with an upper-level trough. An area of low pressure has developed east of the northern Florida peninsula overnight, and there is some potential for this low to develop into a subtropical or tropical cyclone during the next few days as it moves slowly northeastward off the southeast coast of the United States. Regardless of development, locally heavy rains are possible over portions of the Florida Peninsula and coastal areas of Georgia and South Carolina today.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…20 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…medium…40 percent

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: There are no active tropical cyclones

1.)   An elongated surface trough extends several hundred miles off the west-central coast of Mexico. Showers and thunderstorms associated with this system have increased over the past 24 hours, and a more well-defined surface circulation is developing within this trough about 350 miles south of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. Some additional development of this system is possible through this weekend while it moves generally northwestward at 5 to 10 mph. After that time, colder water and stronger upper-level winds near the Baja California peninsula should limit development.

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

1.) A surface low is about 1290 miles southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii or around 420 miles southwest of Johnston island. Some strengthening is possible over the next day. The system is expected to become post tropical as it moves farther northeast tonight.

Here’s a satellite image of this disturbance…along with what the computer models are showing

* Formation chance through 48 hours, low…30 percent

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

>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean:

Typhoon 20W (Krovanh)
remains active, located 68 NM northeast of Iwo To, Japan, here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this strengthening…along with what the computer models show. This typhoon has sustained winds of 98 mph, with gusts of 121 mph.

>>>
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:
New study finds massive eruptions likely triggered mass extinction
Around 252 million years ago, life on Earth collapsed in spectacular and unprecedented fashion, as more than 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species disappeared in a geological instant. The so-called end-Permian mass extinction ­— or more commonly, the “Great Dying” — remains the most severe extinction event in Earth’s history.

Scientists suspect that massive volcanic activity, in a large igneous province called the Siberian Traps, may have had a role in the global die-off, raising air and sea temperatures and releasing toxic amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over a very short period of time. However, it’s unclear whether magmatism was the main culprit, or simply an accessory to the mass extinction.

MIT researchers have now pinned down the timing of the magmatism, and determined that the Siberian Traps erupted at the right time, and for the right duration, to have been a likely trigger for the end-Permian extinction.

According to the group’s timeline, explosive eruptions began around 300,000 years before the start of the end-Permian extinction. Enormous amounts of lava both erupted over land and flowed beneath the surface, creating immense sheets of igneous rock in the shallow crust. The total volume of eruptions and intrusions was enough to cover a region the size of the United States in kilometer-deep magma. About two-thirds of this magma likely erupted prior to and during the period of mass extinction; the last third erupted in the 500,000 years following the end of the extinction event. This new timeline, the researchers say, establishes the Siberian Traps as the main suspect in killing off a majority of the planet’s species.

“We now can say it’s plausible,” says Seth Burgess, who received his PhD last year from MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and is now a postdoc at the U.S. Geological Survey. “The connection is unavoidable, because it’s clear these two things were happening at the same time.”

A singular event

Around the time of the end-Permian extinction, scientists have found that the Earth was likely experiencing a sudden and massive disruption to the carbon cycle, abnormally high air and sea temperatures, and an increasingly acidic ocean — all signs of a huge and rapid addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Whatever triggered the mass extinction, scientists reasoned, must have been powerful enough to generate enormous amounts of greenhouse gases in a short period of time.

The Siberian Traps have long been a likely contender: The large igneous province bears the remains of the largest continental volcanic event in Earth’s history.

“It’s literally a singular event in Earth history — it’s a monster,” Burgess says. “It makes Yellowstone … look like the head of a pin.”

It’s thought that as the region erupted, magma rose up through the Earth’s crust, essentially cooking sediments along the way and releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

“The question we tried to answer is, ‘Which came first, mass extinction or the Siberian Traps? What is their overall tempo, and does the timing permit magmatism to be a trigger for mass extinction?’” Burgess says.

Dates pinned

For the answer, Burgess, Bowring, and colleagues traveled to Siberia on multiple occasions, beginning in 2008, to sample rocks from the Siberian Traps. For each expedition, the team traveled by boat or plane to a small Siberian village, then boarded a helicopter to the Siberian Traps. From there, they paddled on inflatable boats down a wide river, chiseling out samples of volcanic rock along the way.

“We’d have a couple of hundred kilos of rocks, and would go to the market in Moscow and buy 15 sport duffle bags, and in each we’d put 10 kilos of rocks … and hope we could get them all on the plane and back to the lab,” Burgess recalls.

Back at MIT, Burgess and Bowring dated select samples using uranium/lead geochronology, in which Bowring’s lab specializes. The team looked for tiny crystals of either zircon or perovskite, each of which contain uranium and lead, the ratios of which they can measure to calculate the rock’s age. The team dated various layers of rock to determine the beginning and end of the eruptions.

They then compared the timing of the Siberian Traps to that of the end-Permian extinction, which they had previously determined using identical techniques.

“That’s important, because we can compare green apples to green apples. If everything is done the same, there’s no bias,” Burgess says. “Now we’re able to say magmatism definitely preceded mass extinction, and we can resolve those two things outside of uncertainty.”

Richard Ernst, a scientist-in-residence at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, says the new timeline establishes a definitive, causal link between the Siberian Traps and the end-Permian extinction.

“This paper nails it,” says Ernst, who was not involved in the study. “Given that they have dated a portion of the Siberian Traps occurring just before, during, and only for a short time after the extinction, this is the ‘smoking gun’ for this large igneous province being fully correlated with the extinction. At this point, additional dating and other studies will simply provide more details on the link.”

Now that the team has resolved the beginning and end of the Siberian Traps eruptions, Burgess hopes others will take an even finer lens to the event, to determine the tempo of magmatism in the 300,000 years prior to the mass extinction.

“We don’t know if a little erupted for 250,000 years, and right before the extinction, boom, a vast amount did, or if it was more slow and steady, where the atmosphere reaches a tipping point, and across that point you have mass extinction, but before that you just have critically stressed biospheres,” Burgess says. “Now we’ve pinned it down in time, and others can go in with other techniques to get a more fully fleshed out timeline. But we need it to start someplace, and that’s what we’ve got.”

This research was funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation.