Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday…along with the low temperatures Wednesday:
82 – 74 Lihue, Kauai
89 – 76 Honolulu, Oahu
87 – 73 Molokai AP
90 – 70 Kahului AP, Maui
87 – 77 Kailua Kona
86 – 73 Hilo AP, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands…as of Wednesday evening:
1.61 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.70 Punaluu Stream, Oahu
0.01 Puu Alii, Molokai
0.19 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.31 Puu Kukui, Maui
1.12 Saddle Quarry, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Wednesday evening:
25 Port Allen, Kauai
37 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
24 Molokai
24 Lanai
35 Kahoolawe
29 Maalaea Bay, Maui
27 South Point, 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
Occasional wisps of high cirrus clouds riding across our skies
Thunderstorms offshore to the south…we can see the leading edge of drier air approaching to the east (the large cloud free area)
Middle and high level clouds coming and going…providing nice colors at sunrise and sunset
Showers over the islands locally…some are quite generous – Looping radar image
Small Craft Advisory…most coastal and channel waters statewide
Gale Watch…typically windy zones around the Big Island and Maui County starting tonight
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Trade winds remaining active…increasing rather significantly later Thursday into Friday and the weekend. Here’s the latest weather map, showing high pressure systems in the area north and northeast of Hawaii. During the second half of the week our trade winds are expected to increase a notch or two. We may see unusual gale force winds blowing across some marine zones…with possible wind advisories being issued over parts of the state then as well. The trade winds are typical during our summer season here in the islands, although they don’t normally become as strong as what’s anticipated just up ahead. I would expect winds to gust up over 40 mph, perhaps topping out close to 50 mph in those windier locations.
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
There will be a few passing showers, primarily focused along the windward sides…although not exclusively. The models continue to suggest we could see an increase in showers, bringing moisture our way locally into Thursday. The overlying atmosphere will become unstable enough, that some of this shower activity could become locally quite heavy. Thereafter, unusually dry conditions will arrive later Thursday into the first part of the holiday weekend. Interestingly, this much drier air mass originated from the desert southwest on the mainland! As we get into Sunday and the 4th of July holiday, we may see an increase inb windward biased showers for the most part, although not exclusively…which could become numerous.
The tropical ocean far to our east-southeast and east: Looking at the latest models showing the eastern Pacific, it appears that there will be at least one tropical cyclone spinning up over the next 5-7 days. I anticipate a tropical cyclone forming well offshore from Mexico, which will generally move west to northwestward. However, this is certainly not a red flag by any means, as it remains in the eastern Pacific as far as the models go out in their forecast periods. These models pump out their different takes on the atmosphere several times a day, and they keep the eastern Pacific quite busy for the time being. By the way, the GFS model shows an area of tropical moisture coming up over the state Sunday into the 4th of July holiday. This in turn could increase our showers then, with a second area of tropical moisture possible getting close later next week as well…stay tuned.
Marine environment details: A Gale Watch is issued for Thursday night through Saturday as the trades strengthen to gale force in the Pailolo and Alenuihaha Channels, and South of the Big Island. Elsewhere, as winds increase area-wide, choppy seas and gusty winds will make it difficult for small craft across much of the state…especially Friday and Saturday.
Surf will remain below advisory levels along all shorelines the next couple of days. As trade winds strengthen late in the week, surf along east facing shores will increase, and a high surf advisory will likely be necessary over the weekend.
Here on Maui – Early Wednesday morning is dawning clear to partly cloudy, with the wispy high cirrus clouds still around. These high clouds lit up a nice pink color again this morning. The air temperature was 53.9F degrees at 536am. Meanwhile, at about the same time, the Kahului airport was reporting clear skies, with a temperature of 70 degrees, while Hana was 73, Maalaea Bay was 75…and the summit of the Haleakala Crater was reporting 45 degrees. / Now at 1030am, it’s turned good and cloudy up here on the slopes of the Crater, although sunshine seems to be hanging on by a thread down in the lowland areas. These clouds here in Kula certainly have the look and feel of rain. It’s also hazy today, not sure what’s causing that? / Now at 1140am, the clouds are breaking up some, and there’s actually more sunshine than there was about an hour ago…it seems less rain prone now.
– A mix of high (cirrus), middle (altocumulus) and lower level (cumulus) clouds over Maui County early this afternoon. I had expected more showers today, although apparently those showers are concentrating more up near Kauai and Oahu…at least for the most part so far.
– Now at 525pm, at least here in upcountry Kula, the clouds are getting very dark…and a light shower just arrived. As is often the case, I can see lots of sunshine still beaming down in the central valley.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity –
>>> Atlantic Ocean: No active tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 5 days
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: No active tropical cyclones
Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 5 days
>>> Gulf of Mexico: 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: No active tropical cyclones
A large area of disturbed weather is located a few hundred miles south of the coast of southern Mexico. A broad area of low pressure is expected to form in this area during the next day or so, and environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for a tropical depression to develop over the weekend while the system moves generally westward or west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph, remaining well offshore of the coast of Mexico.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…10 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…70 percent
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: No active tropical cyclones
No tropical cyclones expected through the next 2-days
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: Household fuels exceed power plants and cars as source of smog in Beijing – Beijing and surrounding areas of China often suffer from choking smog. The Chinese government has made commitments to improving air quality and has achieved notable results in reducing emissions from the power and transportation sectors. However, new research indicates that the government could achieve dramatic air quality improvements with more attention on an overlooked source of outdoor pollution — residential cooking and heating.
“Coal and other dirty solid fuels are frequently used in homes for cooking and heating,” said Denise Mauzerall, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and public and international affairs at Princeton University. “Because these emissions are essentially uncontrolled they emit a disproportionately large amount of air pollutants which contribute substantially to smog in Beijing and surrounding regions.”
Households account for about 18 percent of total energy use in the Beijing region but produce 50 percent of black carbon emissions and 69 percent of organic carbon emissions, according to a research team from institutions including Princeton, the University of California Berkeley, Peking University and Tsinghua University. In the Beijing area, households contribute more pollutants in the form of small soot particles (which are particularly hazardous to human health) than the transportation sector and power plants combined; in the winter heating season, households also contribute more small particles than do industrial sources.
The researchers said the high levels of air pollutant emissions are due to the use of coal and other dirty fuels in small stoves and heaters that lack the pollution controls in place in power plants, vehicles and at some factories.
The “use of solid fuels (coal and biomass) for heating and cooking in households contributes directly to exposures in and around residences and is a major source of ill health in China,” the researchers wrote in an article published online on June 27, 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers said illness caused by air pollution was a leading cause of premature death in China ranking between high blood pressure and smoking as risk factors.
The researchers used a sophisticated air pollution model to evaluate the benefits of reducing residential emissions on air pollution levels in Beijing and the surrounding region in the winter of 2010. The region in the study, which has a population of 104 million people, and frequently has air pollution levels more than six times higher than what the World Health Organization considers a safe limit, included the cities of Beijing and the surrounding Tianjin and Hebei provinces. The researchers ran computer model simulations in which they removed a varying amount of residential emissions in both Beijing alone as well as the entire Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region and found that reducing residential emissions resulted in corresponding drops in outdoor pollution levels.
“The residential sector has been relatively overlooked in ambient air pollution control strategies,” Mauzerall said. “Our analysis indicates that air quality in the Beijing region would substantially benefit from reducing residential sector emissions from within Beijing and from surrounding provinces. Air pollution levels in Beijing would greatly benefit from a regional strategy to reduce emissions from dirty cook stoves.”
The researchers concluded from their study that eliminating household emissions alone would reduce levels of small particulate pollution in the air over Beijing in winter by about 22 percent, but that eliminating household emissions in all three provinces that include Beijing would nearly double the reduction in particulate levels in the city itself.
“Reducing residential emissions from the entire region, including the surrounding rural areas, has the potential to greatly improve air quality within Beijing and its suburbs,” Mauzerall said. The researchers said the government can take additional steps both in the near term and the future to reduce emissions. Natural gas, liquid petroleum gas, cleaner solid-fuel stoves and electricity can presently reduce emissions. In the long-term electricity from renewable energy sources would virtually eliminate the emissions of both air pollutants and the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
Email Glenn James: 
