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

83 – 72  Lihue, Kauai
85 – 74  Honolulu, Oahu
83 – 72  Molokai
86 – 68  Kahului AP, Maui
89 – 78  Kailua Kona AP
81 – 74  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.64  Wainiha, Kauai
6.65  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
1.62  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.65  Hana AP, Maui
1.60  Honokaa, Big Island

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

20  Port Allen, Kauai – NE
29  Kuaokala, Oahu – NNE
24  Molokai – NNE
27  Lanai – NE
27  Kahoolawe – NNE
23  Maalaea Bay, Maui – NNE
28  Kealakomo, Big Island – N

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
A weak cold front over the central islands – along with a deep
gale low pressure system well north…with another cold front
approaching

Here’s a wind profile…of the offshore waters
around the islands – with a closer view

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/cpac/vis.jpg
We have a fragmented cold front more or less stalled over the
islands…and the next approaching cold front to our north

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/vis.jpg
Clear to partly cloudy with cloudy areas…with windward showers
associated with a weak cold front over the central islands – new
showers are arriving over windward Big Island…heading west


http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
Showers falling over the central islands locally…
most active from Oahu down through Big Island
looping radar image

 

Small Craft Wind Advisory…Maalaea Bay, Pailolo Channel,
and Alenuihaha Channel – until 6am Saturday


~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Our trade winds will be generally light…a bit stronger locally into the weekend. 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 systems well to the northwest and east-northeast of the state. At the same time, we find large low pressure systemw far to our northeast, with associated cold fronts draping back to the southwest from their centers, stalled just offshore to the north of the central islands…with another not far further north. Our winds will come from the northeast…gradually become more easterly into the weekend through the middle of next week.

We’ll find windward showers falling locally…as an old cold front remains in place over the central islands. A new area of showers will arrive tonight into the weekend and early next week. The source of this area of showers is the leftover moisture from now retired tropical depression Nora. These clouds will drift north from Nora’s current position…and then be carried into our windward sides by the trade winds. The Big Island will be on the receiving end of these showers first, and then they will gradually shift further west over the other islands into the weekend. In addition to the clouds and showers that will be arriving over the state…our atmosphere will turn noticeably more humid too.

Here on Maui…It’s 540am Thursday morning with clear to partly cloudy skies. It’s mostly clear over the island, with clouds along our windward sides…stretching over the West Maui Mountains. / Now at 1115am it’s been off and on cloudy and foggy all morning here in Kula, although it appears that sunshine prevails down in the central valley…and probably at the most of our beaches too. / Just before noon, and now that I can see out a bit more, there are lots of clouds over the island. We’re have a very light drizzle here in Kula, or at least we were a few minutes ago.

– We’re into the early evening hours now, just past sunset, and there are low clouds banked up against the windward coasts and slopes, which are trying to extend over towards the leeward sides locally. As a matter of fact, I spent the afternoon at the PDC in Kihei, and on the way home, as I was passing through north Kihei, there was a nice little shower…accompanied by a lovely rainbow too!

By the way, as I mentioned here last week, I’ll be going away on vacation later this month. I’ll be gone for about three weeks, heading over to California to see my Mom and several friends.  I’ll have more to say about this…I just didn’t want it to be a surprise.

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: There are no active tropical cyclones

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 Depression 19E remains active in the northeast Pacific Ocean, located 1360 miles southwest of the southern tip of Baja, California, with sustained winds of 30 mph. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this system…and what the computer models are showing

1.)   An area of low pressure is expected to form a few hundred miles south or south-southeast of the Gulf of Tehuantepec this weekend. Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for gradual development of this low early next week while it moves northwestward or north-northwestward toward the southern coast of Mexico.

* Formation chance through 48 hours…low near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…medium 50 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 trough marking the remnants of tropical depression Nora is located about 250 miles southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. Upper level winds are not conducive for redevelopment of this system.

*formation chance through 48 hours, low, near 0 percent

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

>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean:


Typhoon 24W (Koppu) remains active in the northwest Pacific Ocean, located 281 NM east-northeast of Manila, Philippines, with sustained winds of 104 mph. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this system…and what the computer models are showing

Typhoon 25W (Champi) remains active in the northwest Pacific Ocean, located 146 NM north-northwest of Andersen AFN, with sustained winds of 75 mph. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this system…and what the computer models are showing

>>> South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones


>>> North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea: There are no active tropical cyclones

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


Interesting:  The future of wildfires in a warming world – The history of wildfires over the past 2,000 years in a northern Colorado mountain range indicates that large fires will continue to increase as a result of a warming climate, according to a new study led by a University of Wyoming doctoral student.

“What our research shows is that even modest regional warming trends, like we are currently experiencing, can cause exceptionally large areas in the Rockies to be burned by wildfires,” says John Calder, a Ph.D. candidate in UW’s Program in Ecology and the Department of Geology and Geophysics.

The findings will be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a major scientific journal. The paper, “Medieval warming initiated exceptionally large wildfire outbreaks in the Rocky Mountains,” is co-written by UW researchers Calder, Dusty Parker, Cody Stopka and Bryan Shuman, along with Gonzalo Jimenez-Moreno of the University of Granada in Spain.

Calder and his colleagues examined charcoal deposits in 12 lakes in and near the Mount Zirkel Wilderness of northern Colorado, finding that wildfires burned large portions of that area during a documented spike in temperatures in North America starting about 1,000 years ago. That period, known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), lasted about 300 years, when temperatures rose just under 1 degree Fahrenheit.

Temperature increases over the past few decades have been comparable to those of the MWP, resulting in some of the largest wildfires in U.S. history. Since the mid-1980s, beginning with the large fires in Yellowstone National Park in 1988, there has been an increase in the frequency of large wildfires in the American West.

If the warming trend continues as projected, the fires of recent years could be just the start of more extensive and devastating blazes, the researchers say.

The study examined how often large areas burned in the past 2,000 years. It found that the only time when fires burned substantially more area than in the 20th century was during the MWP.

“When we look back in time, we only see evidence of large areas burning one time in the last 2,000 years,” Calder says. “This suggests that large wildfires of the magnitude we have recently seen used to be very infrequent.”

The researchers estimate that 83 percent of the 385-square-mile study area burned at the beginning of the MWP, when the climate warmed 0.9 degrees. That represented an increase of more than 250 percent, compared to the 20th century.

By comparison, the average increase in temperature in the Rocky Mountain region since 2000 has been about 1.25 degrees higher than during the 20th century.

“Corresponding to those higher temperatures, 12 percent of our study area burned in the large Zirkel Complex fire in 2002,” Calder says. “Our data indicate that, in the Medieval Warm Period, fires were either much larger, or large fires similar to the Zirkel Complex fire burned in that same wilderness area once every decade or two when the temperatures warmed by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit.”

The Medieval fires would be unusual almost anywhere in the Rockies.

“Using Yellowstone fire history as a baseline for comparison, our minimum estimate of 50 percent of (Mount Zirkel) sites burned within a century at the beginning of the MWP exceeds any century-scale estimate of Yellowstone burning for the past 750 years,” the scientists wrote. Over the century that led up to and included the massive 1988 fires, only about 30 percent of Yellowstone burned.

“The large increase in the number of sites burned by fires (during the MWP) highlights the risk that large portions of individual landscapes may burn as climates continue to warm today,” the researchers concluded.