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

84 – 70  Lihue, Kauai
83 – 68  Honolulu, Oahu
82 – 60  Molokai AP
84 – 60  Kahului AP, Maui
82 – 71  Kona AP
87 – 65  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.06  Omao, Kauai
0.01  Makua Portable, Oahu
0.00  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.00  Maui
0.02  Puuanahulu, Big Island

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

14  Mana, Kauai – SE
18  Waiawa FWS, Oahu – SW
15  Molokai – NW
18  Lanai – NW
23  Kahoolawe – NW
12  Hana, Maui – NW
14  South Point, Big Island – NNE

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 cold front sliding by just to our north

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
The cold front will stall before arriving near Kauai…probably

 

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/vis.jpg
Mostly clear to partly cloudy, some cloudy areas…
with the leading edge of the cold front northwest

 

http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
A few showers…mostly over the nearby ocean – looping radar image

High Surf Advisory…north and west shores of Kauai, Oahu
and Molokai / north shore of Maui

Small Craft Advisory…windward coasts and Kaiwi channel

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Light and variable winds continue through Friday…with a brief period of trade winds during the weekend. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean. We find a high pressure system well to our east-northeast…with a ridge of high pressure extending southwest over Oahu and Molokai. Meanwhile, there’s low pressure systems northeast of the islands, with an associated cold front extending from its center…running by just north of Hawaii. Our local winds will remain light, as this high pressure ridge remains over us into Friday. We’ll find onshore daytime sea breezes, and offshore flowing land breezes at night. We continue to have volcanic haze over us, some of which will be thick at times. The trade winds are expected to return this weekend, which should finally help to ventilate this voggy reality away temporarily. The current forecast has light winds returning early next week, with alternating short periods of trade winds and lighter winds prevailing through next week…with volcanic haze coming and going along the way.

A dry and stable atmosphere will remain parked over the state…with just a few showers here and there. The light winds referred to above, in combination with the islands heating up during the days…will prompt another day of late morning through early evening clouds to form locally over the islands. These clouds will develop along the slopes of the mountains for the most part, and then evaporate during the cooler hours of the night. These clouds won’t be dropping many showers, although there will be a few over the leeward slopes locally. The models show a cold front approaching Kauai Friday, although it’s expected to stall before arriving. The relatively close proximity of this front just to our north, may present the chance of some modestly increasing showers over the windward sides of the islands…at times through the weekend. The models then suggest that yet another weak cold front will approach the state during the Monday-Tuesday period, and then again around next Thursday…although there isn’t much chance of them bringing all that many showers our way then.

Here in Maui County…It’s mostly clear to partly cloudy early Thursday morning…with still some volcanic haze in the air. Here in upcountry Kula we have an air temperature of 48F degrees. The temperature at near the same time was 62 degrees near sea level in Kahului, 73 out in Hana, 61 at Maalaea Bay…and 48 atop the Haleakala Crater. Meanwhile, Kahoolawe’s coolest temperature was 64 degrees, with 62 degrees at Lanai City, and 62 at the Molokai airport.

– It’s just before 5pm, late this voggy afternoon here in Kula, Maui. It’s not just here in Maui County that we have vog by the way, as far as I can tell, all of the islands have been putting up with this all week. There are clouds around too, although it’s difficult to see where the clouds give way to the volcanic haze.

– 615pm just before sunset, under clear to partly cloudy skies, light winds…and of course of volcanic haze…which remains thick as a brick. The sun set as a large orange ball, taking on that color, as it passed down through all this vog into the ocean.

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: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2016. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant. Here’s the 2015 hurricane season summary

Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

>>> Caribbean Sea: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2016. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant.

>>> Gulf of Mexico: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2016. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant.

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: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2015 North Pacific hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on May 15, 2016. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant. Here’s the 2015 hurricane season summary

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: The central north Pacific hurricane season has officially ended. Routine issuance of the tropical weather outlook will resume on June 1, 2016. During the off-season, special tropical weather outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant. Here’s the 2015 hurricane season summary

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 / Arabian Sea: 

Tropical Cyclone 09S (Stan) remains active in the South Indian Ocean, located 131 NM north-northwest of Port Hedland, Australia. Here’s a satellite image of this cyclone, along with what the computer models are showing.

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


Interesting:  Study finds toxic pollutants in fish across the world’s oceans – A new global analysis of seafood found that fish populations throughout the world’s oceans are contaminated with industrial and agricultural pollutants, collectively known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). The study from researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego also uncovered some good news…concentrations of these pollutants have been consistently dropping over the last 30 years.

The findings, reported in the Jan. 28, 2016 issue of the journal PeerJ, were based on an analysis by Scripps researchers Lindsay Bonito, Amro Hamdoun, and Stuart Sandin of hundreds of peer-reviewed articles from 1969-2012. The pollutants studied included older ‘legacy’ chemicals, such as DDT and mercury, as well as newer industrial chemicals, such as flame retardants and coolants.

“Based on the best data collected from across the globe, we can say that POPs can be anywhere and in any species of marine fish,” said Scripps biologist Sandin, a co-author of the study.

Although POPs were found in fish in all of the world’s oceans, the researchers say that concentrations in the consumable meat of marine fish are highly variable, where one region or group of fish may find concentrations of POPs that vary by 1,000-fold. The analysis revealed that average concentrations of each class of POP were significantly higher in the 1980s than is found today, with a drop in concentration of 15-30 percent per decade.

“This means that the typical fish that you consume today can have approximately 50 percent of the concentration of most POPs when compared to the same fish eaten by your parents at your age,” said Bonito, the lead author of the study. “But there still remains a chance of getting a fillet as contaminated as what your parents ate.”

The researchers also compared the results to federal safety guidelines for seafood consumption and found that the average levels of contaminants were at or below the health standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Mercury and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl) concentrations were at the EPA threshold for occasional human consumption, while concentrations of DDT were consistently much lower than the established threshold.

According to the authors, these results suggest that the global community has responded to the calls-to-action, such as in the Stockholm Convention, to limit the release of potentially harmful chemicals into the environment.

The authors caution that although pollutant concentrations in marine fish are steadily declining, they still remain quite high, and that understanding the cumulative effects of numerous exposures to pollutants in seafood is necessary to determine the specific risk to consumers.