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

84 – 64  Lihue, Kauai
81 – 70  Honolulu, Oahu
84 – 60  Molokai AP
85 – 60  Kahului AP, Maui
82 – 73  Kona AP
85 – 67  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.68  Kokee, Kauai
0.04  Waiahole, Oahu
0.00  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.04  Kaupo Gap, Maui
0.04  Kealakomo, Big Island

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

14  Mana, Kauai – N
12  Kuaokala, Oahu – NNE
12  Molokai – NNE
18  Lanai – NE
08  Kahoolawe – NNE
08  Kula 1, Maui – ENE
13  Pali 2, 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
A cold front breaking up near Kauai

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 near Kauai…and fall apart

 

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/vis.jpg
Mostly clear to partly cloudy…some cloudy areas

 

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

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Light and variable winds today…with a brief period of trade winds this 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 Kauai. Meanwhile, there’s a low pressure system far northeast of the islands, offshore from the Washington coast, with an associated cold front extending from its center…running by just north of Hawaii. At the same time, there’s another storm far northwest, near the International Dateline, that has the next cold front that will be running by north of the state…still well northwest of the islands. Our local winds will remain light, as this high pressure ridge is over us today. 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. Light to moderately strong trade winds will return this weekend, which should finally help to ventilate this voggy reality away temporarily into Monday morning. The current forecast has light winds returning briefly, with alternating periods of trade winds and light and variable winds prevailing through next week…with volcanic haze coming and going along the way.

A dissipating cold front brought some showers locally to Kauai…with very few elsewhere.  Satellite imagery shows a cold front breaking apart near Kauai, and was able to bring .68″ of rain to Kokee, in the mountains. The relatively close proximity of this quickly dissipating front just to our north, will probably bring some modestly increasing showers over the windward sides of the islands…at times through this 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-Friday, although there isn’t much chance of either of them bringing all that many showers our way…if any.

Here in Maui County…It’s mostly clear early Friday morning…with thick volcanic haze still in the air. Here in upcountry Kula we have an air temperature of 46.2F degrees. The temperature at near the same time was 62 degrees near sea level in Kahului, 72 out in Hana, 61 at Maalaea Bay…and 52 atop the Haleakala Crater. Meanwhile, Kahoolawe’s coolest temperature was 64 degrees, with 61 degrees at Lanai City, and 68 at the Molokai airport.

– It’s partly to mostly cloudy this afternoon, with the continued presence of volcanic haze. The clouds should clear again tonight, as they have been doing, with mostly clear skies Saturday morning. The vog will still be around, although the returning trade winds should gradually ventilate it away this weekend.

– Clouds quickly evaporated over most areas once it got dark, with a few areas of moisture, one of which is leftover moisture from the dissipating cold front near Oahu…and another around the eastern islands. Here in upcountry Kula, it’s totally clear with a cool 51.9 degrees showing up on my thermometer at 1010pm.

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

Friday Evening Film: There are still a couple of films that I’ve been hankering to see the last several weeks, there are so many in fact, that I had to see two last week…just to try and keep up. Tonight, my film viewing friend Jeff and I have decided to see one that looks pretty darn gnarly, called The Revenant. This dramatic action and adventure film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleason, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Paul Anderson, and Melaw Nakehk’o…among many others. The synopsis: Inspired by true events, The Revenant is an immersive and visceral cinematic experience, capturing one man’s epic adventure of survival and the extraordinary power of the human spirit. In an expedition of the uncharted American wilderness, legendary explorer Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is brutally attacked by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. In a quest to survive, Glass endures unimaginable grief as well as the betrayal of his confidant John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Guided by sheer will and the love of his family, Glass must navigate a vicious winter in a relentless pursuit to live and find redemption. This film is directed and co-written by renowned filmmaker, Academy Award (R) winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, Babel).

This film was elemental…a real force of nature. It was such a raw film, an epic tale of human survival at the most base level. This film swept me up, carried me along roughly for a couple of hours, and then plunked me back into myself, sitting in that theater seat dazed.This film sweep me up, carried me along roughly for a couple of hours, and then deposited me back into myself, sitting in that theater seat dazed. It was a fabulous story, filled with vengeance, beauty…and of course the requisite horror. A punishing drama, in which Leonardo DiCaprio is totally mauled by a mother bear, and then left for dead by members of his own team. In sum, revenge has never been more brutally depicted as it is in this epic tale! There was subtle beauty filled with magnificence, and yet otherworldly grittiness was waiting around every corner. Jeff gave the film a B+, while I went a tad bit higher, with a strong B+…almost reaching A minus. Here’s the trailer – full screen is always best, although as I mentioned above…this film is not a light weight piece of work.


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 75 NM north-northeast 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.