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

80 – 71  Lihue, Kauai
82 – 72  Honolulu, Oahu
82 – 71  Molokai AP
83 – 70  Kahului AP, Maui
82 – 70  Kailua Kona
79 – 67  Hilo AP, Hawaii

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

2.03  Kilohana, Kauai
0.98  Palisades, Oahu
 1.36  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
3.28  Puu Kukui, Maui
3.57  Saddle Quarry, Big Island

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

29  Puu Lua, Kauai
59  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
39  Molokai
36  Lanai
47  Kahoolawe
43  Maalaea Bay, Maui
42  Puu Mali, Big Island

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of our tallest mountain Mauna Kea (nearly 13,800 feet high) on the Big Island of Hawaii. This webcam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands, and at night whenever there’s a big moon shining down. Also, at night you will be able to see the stars — and the sunrise and sunset too — depending upon weather conditions.


Aloha Paragraphs

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Windward showers…with more widespread inclement weather on the way

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High and middle level clouds just southeast, with thunderstorms far south…and a cold front far northwest of Hawaii

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A range of clear to cloudy skies across the state

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Showers here and there…some locally heavy – Looping radar image


Small Craft Advisory…all coasts and channels (25-30 knots)

Gale Warning…Maalaea Bay and Pailolo and Alenuihaha Channels

High Surf Advisory…east facing shores of all the major islands

Flash Flood Watch…Big Island

Winter Storm Warning…Big Island Summits


~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

 

 

Winds remaining stronger than normal into Thursday…followed by lighter winds Friday into the weekend. Here’s the latest weather map, showing our primary high pressure system northeast of Hawaii. The current windy weather episode will bring 50-60 mph wind gusts to some areas of the island chain. These numbers will be the extreme, with most areas much lighter. As a result, we have Small Craft Advisories posted over all coastal and channel waters across the state. In addition, there’s an unusual Gale Warning over the Pailolo and Alenuihaha Channels, Maalaea Bay, and the southeast and leeward waters around the Big Island. Finally, the windiest areas over Oahu, Maui County and the Big Island have a Wind Advisory active as well. The trades are forecast to remain blustery over the islands into Thursday…then weakening significantly Friday into the weekend. These winds will turn to the southeast, which are infamous for carrying volcanic emissions from the Big Island vents, over the smaller islands.

Here’s a wind profile of the offshore waters around the islands – and a closer look

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

Windward showers will be frequent through Thursday, with a marked increase on the horizon statewide Friday into the weekend. As robust trade winds are blowing, the bulk of these showers will impact the windward sides, although not exclusively. These showers will be quite heavy in a few areas…thanks to the arrival of an upper level trough of low pressure. Looking further ahead, we’ll very likely find a second period of wet weather arriving Friday into the upcoming weekend. More specifically, a Kona low pressure system will set up shop just west of the state, bringing a shower prone and unsettled atmosphere over the state. This in turn will bring abundant moisture from the deeper tropics over the islands, along with the potential for excessive rains and flooding from Saturday into early next week. The models are now hinting at yet another slug of moisture potentially arriving later next week.

Marine environment details: A strong high pressure system to the northeast will maintain strong to gale force northeast to east trade winds over the coastal waters. A Gale Warning is in effect for the windiest zones around the Big Island and Maui through tonight, with a Small Craft Advisory for the rest of the coastal waters. A small craft advisory will also replace the gale warning once it is discontinued. Winds will start to weaken Thursday into Thursday night, then shift out of the southeast Friday…as a surface trough of low pressure develops west of the islands.

The strong trade winds will produce rough surf along east facing shores. The nearshore buoys and surf observations are still at or above advisory levels. While local winds will start to diminish Thursday, the upstream fetch remains long and wide with stronger winds remaining in place upstream.

 

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Windy…inclement weather conditions on tap

 


World-wide tropical cyclone activity…


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>>> Atlantic Ocean: The 2016 hurricane season has ended

Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

>>> Caribbean: The 2016 hurricane season has ended

>>> Gulf of Mexico: The 2016 hurricane season has ended

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 2016 hurricane season has ended

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 2016 hurricane season has ended

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:

Tropical Cyclone 04B (Nada) is dissipating in the Bay of Bengal, here, the JTWC graphical track map, with a satellite image of the storm – Final Warning

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


Interesting: West Antarctic ice shelf breaking up from the inside out – A key glacier in Antarctica is breaking apart from the inside out, suggesting that the ocean is weakening ice on the edges of the continent.

The Pine Island Glacier, part of the ice shelf that bounds the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is one of two glaciers that researchers believe are most likely to undergo rapid retreat, bringing more ice from the interior of the ice sheet to the ocean, where its melting would flood coastlines around the world.

A nearly 225-square-mile iceberg broke off from the glacier in 2015, but it wasn’t until Ohio State University researchers were testing some new image-processing software that they noticed something strange in satellite images taken before the event.

In the images, they saw evidence that a rift formed at the very base of the ice shelf nearly 20 miles inland in 2013. The rift propagated upward over two years, until it broke through the ice surface and set the iceberg adrift over 12 days in late July and early August 2015.

“It’s generally accepted that it’s no longer a question of whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt, it’s a question of when,” said study leader Ian Howat, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State. “This kind of rifting behavior provides another mechanism for rapid retreat of these glaciers, adding to the probability that we may see significant collapse of West Antarctica in our lifetimes.”

While this is the first time researchers have witnessed a deep subsurface rift opening within Antarctic ice, they have seen similar breakups in the Greenland Ice Sheet—in spots where ocean water has seeped inland along the bedrock and begun to melt the ice from underneath.

Howat said the satellite images provide the first strong evidence that these large Antarctic ice shelves respond to changes at their ocean edge in a similar way as observed in Greenland.

“Rifts usually form at the margins of an ice shelf, where the ice is thin and subject to shearing that rips it apart,” he explained. “However, this latest event in the Pine Island Glacier was due to a rift that originated from the center of the ice shelf and propagated out to the margins. This implies that something weakened the center of the ice shelf, with the most likely explanation being a crevasse melted out at the bedrock level by a warming ocean.”

Another clue: The rift opened in the bottom of a “valley” in the ice shelf where the ice had thinned compared to the surrounding ice shelf.

The valley is likely a sign of something researchers have long suspected: Because the bottom of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet lies below sea level, ocean water can intrude far inland and remain unseen. New valleys forming on the surface would be one outward sign that ice was melting away far below.

The origin of the rift in the Pine Island Glacier would have gone unseen, too, except that the Landsat 8 images Howat and his team were analyzing happened to be taken when the sun was low in the sky. Long shadows cast across the ice drew the team’s attention to the valley that had formed there.

“The really troubling thing is that there are many of these valleys further up-glacier,” Howat added. “If they are actually sites of weakness that are prone to rifting, we could potentially see more accelerated ice loss in Antarctica.”

More than half of the world’s fresh water is frozen in Antarctica. The Pine Island Glacier and its nearby twin, the Thwaites Glacier, sit at the outer edge of one of the most active ice streams on the continent. Like corks in a bottle, they block the ice flow and keep nearly 10 percent of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from draining into the sea.

Studies have suggested that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is particularly unstable, and could collapse within the next 100 years. The collapse would lead to a sea-level rise of nearly 10 feet, which would engulf major U.S. cities such as New York and Miami and displace 150 million people living on coasts worldwide.

“We need to understand exactly how these valleys and rifts form, and what they mean for ice shelf stability,” Howat said. “We’re limited in what information we can get from space, so this will mean targeting air and field campaigns to collect more detailed observations. The U.S. and the U.K. are partnering on a large field science program targeted at that area of Antarctica, so this will provide another piece to the puzzle.”