Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday…along with the minimums Sunday:
82 – 74 Lihue, Kauai
85 – 76 Honolulu, Oahu
81 – 75 Molokai
83 – 72 Kahului AP, Maui
84 – 73 Kailua Kona AP
83 – 70 Hilo, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Sunday evening:
0.81 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.88 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.21 Molokai 1, Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.02 Kahoolawe
0.37 Hana airport, Maui
1.16 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Sunday evening:
24 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
29 Kuaokala, Oahu – NE
24 Molokai – ENE
31 Lanai – NE
36 Kahoolawe – NE
28 Kahului AP, Maui – NNE
31 Puu Mali, 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
Cold fronts moving by far north of Hawaii
Here’s a wind profile…of the offshore waters
around the islands – with a closer view
Thunderstorms well offshore southwest and southeast
Clear to cloudy…with areas of low clouds locally
Passing showers along the windward sides of the
islands locally, especially Kauai and Oahu tonight
into Monday morning
looping radar image
Small Craft Advisory…windiest coasts and channels
eastern islands from Oahu southeast
High Surf Advisory…north and west shores of Kauai,
Oahu, Molokai – north shores of Maui and the
Big Island – through 7pm
Wind Advisory…Lanai, Kahoolawe through
the Kohala Mountains on the Big Island
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Our winds will be locally strong and gusty trades…easing up some Monday for a few days. 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 moderately strong high pressure systems to the northeast through northwest of the state. At the same time, we find a deep storm low pressure system far to our north…with a couple of comma shaped cold fronts draping southwest from its center. A new cold front will approach the state over the next day or two, weakening high pressure to our north, with slightly softer trade wind speeds the result. Thereafter, we’ll find some strengthening by mid-week…followed by another easing of our local winds again Friday into next weekend.
A few showers along our windward sides…leeward areas will remain generally dry. The forecast continues to show that we’ll see off and on passing windward showers, carried our way thanks to the substantial trade wind flow. We’ll find another batch of showers moving across the windward sides overnight, the bulk of which will impact Kauai and Oahu. As this area dissipates Monday, we’ll see generally drier weather arriving…especially along our leeward sections. The forecast shows the next cold front migrating by offshore to our north over the next few days. Looking even further out by Friday into next weekend, yet another weak cold front will approach the state, perhaps sliding by to our north again…with little influence other than softening our trade winds then.
Here on Maui…It’s partly cloudy with some localized showers along the windward sides, with clear skies prevailing across the rest of the island. Here in upcountry Kula, it’s calm and clear, after a completely dry night. / Now at 750am, even the windward sides look clear, what a glorious late autumn day!
– We’re into the middle of the afternoon on this second day of the weekend. Skies are partly cloudy, with nice blue skies on both the leeward and windward sides of the island. Our weather is almost completely dry, with rather strong and gusty trade winds blowing locally. I can see large surf breaking along the north shore, while the south shore is very small to near flat…great for swimming!
– It’s just before sunset as I check in again for our evening weather wrap. Looking around the island I see clear to partly cloudy conditions in general…with just a few exceptions. I expect our leeward south and west facing coasts and slopes to remain dry overnight, and likely through the next few days at least. The windward sides, as usual with the gusty trade winds around now, will find a few passing showers overnight, although not as frequent as the past few days. Generally drier weather seems to be heading our way, with no organized showers taking aim on Maui County at this time.
I’ll be back with many 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
Friday Evening Film: There are several good looking films showing now, including Brooklyn and Trumbo, both of which I hope to see before they leave town. However, a few friends and I went to see the new film called Spotlight, starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Billy Crudup, Liev Schreiber, and Stanley Tucci…among many others. The synopsis: Spotlight tells the riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city, and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delves into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world. Directed by Academy Award-nominee Tom McCarthy, Spotlight is a tense investigative dramatic-thriller, tracing the steps to one of the biggest cover-ups in modern times.
What a powerful film! The individual performances were just outstanding, some of the best of the year in my opinion. The subject matter of this film is touchy, very touchy indeed. In civilian law, such acts would be slam dunks…people would be thrown in jail or prison, in no uncertain terms! However, because these terrible sexual acts by priests towards children happen behind closed doors, and in a church setting, somehow people turn their backs. In my mind, the bishops and cardinals are responsible, and even the Pope. I don’t mean to be pointing my finger at the church exclusively, because I know that these sorts of things happen in other areas of life too. If there’s an opening or opportunity, there’s always people who take advantage, and there are victims in turn. Spotlight is the true story behind the Catholic Church’s cover-up of decades of sexual abuse, and it is unflinching in its focus, and animated by its outrage, which is the best and worst part of this excellent film. If you have any interest…here’s the trailer.
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: There are no active tropical cyclones
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)
>>> South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclone 04P (Tuni) is dissipating in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Here’s the current JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image…and what the hurricane models are showing – Final Warning has been issued
>>> 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: Earth’s first ecosystems were more complex than previously thought – Computer simulations have allowed scientists to work out how a puzzling 555-million-year-old organism with no known modern relatives fed, revealing that some of the first large, complex organisms on Earth formed ecosystems that were much more complex than previously thought.
The international team of researchers from Canada, the UK and the USA, including Dr Imran Rahman from the University of Bristol, studied fossils of an extinct organism called Tribrachidium, which lived in the oceans some 555 million years ago. Using a computer modelling approach called computational fluid dynamics, they were able to show that Tribrachidium fed by collecting particles suspended in water. This is called suspension feeding and it had not previously been documented in organisms from this period of time.
Tribrachidium lived during a period of time called the Ediacaran, which ranged from 635 million to 541 million years ago. This period was characterized by a variety of large, complex organisms, most of which are difficult to link to any modern species. It was previously thought that these organisms formed simple ecosystems characterized by only a few feeding modes, but the new study suggests they were capable of more types of feeding than previously appreciated.
Dr Simon Darroch, an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University, said: “For many years, scientists have assumed that Earth’s oldest complex organisms, which lived over half a billion years ago, fed in only one or two different ways. Our study has shown this to be untrue, Tribrachidium and perhaps other species were capable of suspension feeding. This demonstrates that, contrary to our expectations, some of the first ecosystems were actually quite complex.”
Co-author Dr Marc Laflamme, an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga, added: “Tribrachidium doesn’t look like any modern species, and so it has been really hard to work out what it was like when it was alive. The application of cutting-edge techniques, such as CT scanning and computational fluid dynamics, allowed us to determine, for the first time, how this long-extinct organism fed.”
Computational fluid dynamics is a method for simulating fluid flows that is commonly used in engineering, for example in aircraft design, but this is one of the first applications of the technique in palaeontology (following up previous research carried out at Bristol).
Dr Rahman, a Research Fellow in Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences said: “The computer simulations we ran allowed us to test competing theories for feeding in Tribrachidium. This approach has great potential for improving our understanding of many extinct organisms.”
Co-author Dr Rachel Racicot, a postdoctoral researcher at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County added: “Methods for digitally analyzing fossils in 3D have become increasingly widespread and accessible over the last 20 years. We can now use these data to address any number of questions about the biology and ecology of ancient and modern organisms.”
The study is published today in the journal Science Advances.
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