Air Temperatures (current updated temperature data unavailable for the time being)
Lihue, Kauai
Honolulu, Oahu
Molokai AP
Kahului AP, Maui
Kailua Kona
Hilo AP, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands (current updated rainfall data unavailable for the time being)
Kauai
Oahu
Molokai
Lanai
Kahoolawe
Maui
Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph) (current updated wind data unavailable for the time being)
Kauai
Oahu
Molokai
Lanai
Kahoolawe
Maui
Big Island
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
Low pressure system over the ocean far to the northeast…
with it’s frontal cloud band draping southwest
Thunderstorms far southwest…and west-northwest of the islands
Generally low level clouds…with lots of clear skies too –
the brighter white clouds are higher level
Showers falling locally…mostly offshore and windward areas
Looping radar image
Small Craft Advisory…most coasts and channels around Oahu,
Maui County and the Big Island – for winds and seas
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Moderately strong and gusty trade winds through mid-week, weakening slightly Thursday…then picking up again Friday into the weekend. Here’s the latest weather map, showing moderately strong high pressure systems to the north and northeast of Hawaii…with a ridge of high pressure north of the islands. At the same time, there’s a gale low pressure system far north-northeast of the state, in the Gulf of Alaska, with its comma shaped cold front draping southwest from its center. This late season cold front swings into a gale low pressure system to the northwest of Hawaii. As we move through this week, the trades will continue…with some strengthening and weakening along the way.
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
Clouds and showers will favor windward and mountain areas through the week, with an occasional shower drifting into leeward sides…mainly during the night and morning hours. We’ll find a trough of low pressure and a surface cold front, coming in closer to the state later Wednesday into Thursday. This suggests that we could see an increase shower activity, mainly for windward and mountain areas…although not exclusively. As this trough moves away Friday into the weekend, our trade winds will pick up, with a fairly normal trade wind weather pattern returning into early next week.
Marine environment details: A rise in surf heights is expected along south facing shores beginning Wednesday. This swell will peak Thursday then gradually lower through Saturday. Moderate trade winds will cause an increase in choppy surf along windward shores this week as well. No other significant swells are expected.
The small craft advisory (SCA) has been expanded to include most coastal waters today and tonight due to the strong trade winds. The winds will begin to weaken a bit Wednesday, but the typically windy waters around Maui County and the Big Island will likely remain at SCA levels. The winds are expected to decrease below SCA levels across all waters for Thursday and Thursday night as a front stalls well northwest of the state. The trades will then increase again Friday into the weekend, as high pressure becomes re-established northeast of the island chain, with SCA likely needed for the typically windier waters around Maui County and the Big Island once again.
Here on Maui – Before sunrise on this Tuesday morning, we find clear to partly cloudy skies. Here at my place in upcountry Kula, it’s clear and calm…with an air temperature of 50.3F degrees at 530am.
– Early afternoon, under clear to partly cloudy skies…yet another nice day here in paradise! / It got a little cloudier here in Kula, and very lightly showered for a minute or two…although has backed off again at 430pm.
– Early evening, under clear to partly cloudy skies. Looking at satellite imagery, it appears the windward sides from Oahu down through Maui County and the Big Island…could see an increase in showers tonight into Wednesday morning. A little color at sunset this evening.
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: No active tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 5 days.
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)
>>> 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: Anthropogenic dust found to have long-ranging impacts to oceans – As climatologists closely monitor the impact of human activity on the world’s oceans, researchers have found yet another worrying trend impacting the health of the Pacific Ocean.
As climatologists closely monitor the impact of human activity on the world’s oceans, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found yet another worrying trend impacting the health of the Pacific Ocean.
A new modeling study conducted by researchers in Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences shows that for decades, air pollution drifting from East Asia out over the world’s largest ocean has kicked off a chain reaction that contributed to oxygen levels falling in tropical waters thousands of miles away.
“There’s a growing awareness that oxygen levels in the ocean may be changing over time,” said Taka Ito, an associate professor at Georgia Tech. “One reason for that is the warming environment — warm water holds less gas. But in the tropical Pacific, the oxygen level has been falling at a much faster rate than the temperature change can explain.”
The study, which was published May 16 in Nature Geoscience, was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, a Georgia Power Faculty Scholar Chair and a Cullen-Peck Faculty Fellowship.
In the report, the researchers describe how air pollution from industrial activities had raised levels of iron and nitrogen — key nutrients for marine life — in the ocean off the coast of East Asia. Ocean currents then carried the nutrients to tropical regions, where they were consumed by photosynthesizing phytoplankton.
But while the tropical phytoplankton may have released more oxygen into the atmosphere, their consumption of the excess nutrients had a negative effect on the dissolved oxygen levels deeper in the ocean.
“If you have more active photosynthesis at the surface, it produces more organic matter, and some of that sinks down,” Ito said. “And as it sinks down, there’s bacteria that consume that organic matter. Like us breathing in oxygen and exhaling CO2, the bacteria consume oxygen in the subsurface ocean, and there is a tendency to deplete more oxygen.”
That process plays out in all across the Pacific, but the effects are most pronounced in tropical areas, where dissolved oxygen is already low.
Athanasios Nenes, a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech who worked with Ito on the study, said the research is the first to describe just how far reaching the impact of human industrial activity can be.
“The scientific community always thought that the impact of air pollution is felt in the vicinity of where it deposits ,” said Nenes, who also serves as Georgia Power Faculty Scholar. “This study shows that the iron can circulate across the ocean and affect ecosystems thousands of kilometers away.”
While evidence had been mounting that global climate change may have an impact on future oxygen levels, Ito and Nenes were spurred to search for an explanation for why oxygen levels in the tropics had been declining since the 1970s.
To understand how the process worked, the researchers developed a model that combines atmospheric chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, and ocean circulation. Their model maps out how polluted, iron-rich dust that settles over the Northern Pacific gets carried by ocean currents east toward North America, down the coast and then back west along the equator.
In their model, the researchers accounted for other factors that can also impact oxygen levels, such as water temperature and ocean current variability.
Whether due to warming sea waters or an increase in iron pollution, the implications of growing oxygen-minimum zones are far reaching for marine life.
“Many living organisms depend on oxygen that is dissolved in seawater,” Ito said. “So if it gets low enough, it can cause problems, and it might change habitats for marine organisms.”
Occasionally, waters from low oxygen areas swell to the coastal waters, killing or displacing populations of fish, crabs and many other organisms. Those “hypoxic events” may become more frequent as the oxygen-minimum zones grow, Ito said.
The increasing phytoplankton activity is a double-edged sword, Ito said.
“It serves as the base of food chain and absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide. But if the pollution continues to supply excess nutrients, the process of the decomposition depletes oxygen from the deeper waters, and this deep oxygen is not easily replaced.”
The study also expands on the understanding of dust as a transporter of pollution, Nenes said.
“Dust has always attracted of a lot of interest because of its impact on the health of people,” Nenes said. “This is really the first study showing that dust can have a huge impact on the health of the oceans in ways that we’ve never understood before. It just raises the need to understand what we’re doing to marine ecosystems that feed populations worldwide.”
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