Air Temperatures The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday…and the low temperatures Tuesday:

80 – 68  Lihue, Kauai
85 – 72  Honolulu, Oahu

7568  Molokai AP
83 – 70  Kahului AP, Maui
8572  Kailua Kona
85
67  Hilo AP, Hawaii

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

0.65  Kilohana, Kauai
1.98  Tunnel RG,
Oahu
4.06  Puu Alii, Molokai
0.06  Lanai
0.02  Kahoolawe
5.00  West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.62  Kealakekua, Big Island

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

23  Poipu, Kauai NNE
35  Oahu Forest NWR,
Oahu – SE
23 
Molokai – N
30  Lanai – NE

21  Kahoolawe – NE
29  Kapalua,
Maui – N 

30  Puuanahulu, Big Island – NNE

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
A low pressure system over the ocean to the northeast…along with its
ragged frontal cloud band draping southwest from its center

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/cpac/ir4.jpg
What’s left of a late season cold front remains over the
islands…with an area of thunderstorms to the west
and southwest

 

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg
Most clouds hugging the windward sides, with clear to partly
cloudy skies leeward…high cirrus just southwest

 

http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
Showers falling locally…across all the islands –
Looping radar image


~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Northeasterly trade winds, moderately strong…although locally quite stronger and gusty. Here’s the latest weather map, showing high pressure systems to the northwest and far northeast. At the same time, there’s weak low pressure systems to the north-northeast…with the tail-end of and old cold front over Maui.
The air flow over the state is generally from the trade wind direction. They should remain moderately strong, before settling into the light to moderately strong realms through Thursday or Friday…then even lighter into the weekend. Early next week the high will strengthen and shift northeast of the islands…which should allow for the trades to become stronger. This in turn will finally return us to a more normal springtime trade wind weather pattern.

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

Here’s the Hawaiian Islands Sulfate Aerosol animated graphic showing vog forecast

Moisture associated with a stalled and weakening front will impact parts of Maui County…and then shift eastward over the Big Island. The bulk of this residual shower activity will be focused over the central islands, dipping down over the Big Island with time. The leeward sides of the islands will have decent weather…with less cloudiness and more sunshine during the days. The models indicate an upper level low pressure system passing over the island this weekend, which should prompt a weak surface trough over the state. As a result, weak winds will veer to the east-southeast and move the remnant frontal moisture, hung up near the Big Island…back over the smaller islands. A light wind flow then would allow for daytime sea breezes to blow, bringing showers to the leeward upcountry areas during the afternoons…perhaps locally quite heavy in some areas.

Marine environment details: Trade winds will weaken further Thursday into the weekend, then strengthen again early next week.

Surf along all shores will remain below high surf advisory levels through the forecast period. The current north and south swells will decline through Wednesday. A small northwest is expected to arrive late Friday through the weekend.

 

   https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/dd/4a/2b/dd4a2bf5b0d14339f43b62b4078f0607.jpg
Honolulu, Oahu


Here on Maui
– Before sunrise on this Tuesday morning, we find clear to cloudy skies…along with some showers falling along the windward sides. Looking over towards Kihei and Wailea, it looks generally clear…as it is here in Kula. There’s a bit of high cirrus clouds showing up to the south and west of our leeward sides. The air temperature at my weather tower was 54.1F degrees at 525am. At about the same time, it was cloudy in Kahului at the airport and in Hana, with an air temperature of 73 degrees…and 37 degrees atop the Haleakala Crater. / 1105am, I still see some blue skies around the edges, although there has definitely been an increase in clouds. These clouds are dropping a few showers too, mostly along the windward sides at the time of this writing.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, at least here in upcountry Kula, it has been lightly raining and foggy for the last hour or so. It’s cloudy but not raining in Kahului, with light rain reported over in Kapalua. I can’t see out to determine what other areas are having in terms of weather. The NWS site is showing me temperatures, which are mostly in the middle 70’s near sea level…with a 67 degree here at my place at the 3,100 foot elevation.

Early evening, and it’s still lightly raining here in upcountry Kula. Meanwhile, it was partly sunny in Kapalua and cloudy down in Kahului. / 9pm, and it’s still lightly raining here in Kula.

 

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: No active tropical cyclones

>>>
South Pacific Ocean:
No active tropical cyclones


>>>
North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea:
No active tropical cyclones

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


Interesting:
Early Earth’s air weighed less than half of today’s atmosphere – The idea that the young Earth had a thicker atmosphere turns out to be wrong. New research from the University of Washington uses bubbles trapped in 2.7 billion-year-old rocks to show that air at that time exerted at most half the pressure of today’s atmosphere.

The results, published online May 9 in Nature Geoscience, reverse the commonly accepted idea that the early Earth had a thicker atmosphere to compensate for weaker sunlight. The finding also has implications for which gases were in that atmosphere, and how biology and climate worked on the early planet.

“For the longest time, people have been thinking the atmospheric pressure might have been higher back then, because the sun was fainter,” said lead author Sanjoy Som, who did the work as part of his UW doctorate in Earth and space sciences. “Our result is the opposite of what we were expecting.”

The idea of using bubbles trapped in cooling lava as a “paleobarometer” to determine the weight of air in our planet’s youth occurred decades ago to co-author Roger Buick, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. Others had used the technique to measure the elevation of lavas a few million years old. To flip the idea and measure air pressure farther back in time, researchers needed a site where truly ancient lava had undisputedly formed at sea level.

Their field site in Western Australia was discovered by co-author Tim Blake of the University of Western Australia. There, the Beasley River has exposed 2.7 billion-year-old basalt lava. The lowest lava flow has “lava toes” that burrow into glassy shards, proving that molten lava plunged into seawater. The team drilled into the overlying lava flows to examine the size of the bubbles.

A stream of molten rock that forms a lava quickly cools from top and bottom, and bubbles trapped at the bottom are smaller than those at the top. The size difference records the air pressure pushing down on the lava as it cooled, 2.7 billion years ago.

Rough measurements in the field suggested a surprisingly lightweight atmosphere. More rigorous x-ray scans from several lava flows confirmed the result: The bubbles indicate that the atmospheric pressure at that time was less than half of today’s.

Earth 2.7 billion years ago was home only to single-celled microbes, sunlight was about one-fifth weaker, and the atmosphere contained no oxygen. But this finding points to conditions being even more otherworldly than previously thought. A lighter atmosphere could affect wind strength and other climate patterns, and would even alter the boiling point of liquids.

“We’re still coming to grips with the magnitude of this,” Buick said. “It’s going to take us a while to digest all the possible consequences.”

Other geological evidence clearly shows liquid water on Earth at that time, so the early atmosphere must have contained more heat-trapping greenhouse gases, like methane and carbon dioxide, and less nitrogen.

The new study is an advance on the UW team’s previous work on “fossilized raindrops” that first cast doubt on the idea of a far thicker ancient atmosphere. The result also reinforces Buick’s 2015 finding that microbes were pulling nitrogen out of Earth’s atmosphere some 3 billion years ago.

“The levels of nitrogen gas have varied through Earth’s history, at least in Earth’s early history, in ways that people just haven’t even thought of before,” said co-author David Catling, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. “People will need to rewrite the textbooks.”

The researchers will next look for other suitable rocks to confirm the findings and learn how atmospheric pressure might have varied through time.

While clues to the early Earth are scarce, it is still easier to study than planets outside our solar system, so this will help understand possible conditions and life on other planets where atmospheres might be thin and oxygen-free, like that of the early Earth.