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

77 – 64  Lihue, Kauai
80 – 64  Honolulu, Oahu
75 – 66  Molokai AP
78 – 68  Kahului AP, Maui
82 – 69  Kailua Kona AP
76 – 64  Hilo AP, Hawaii

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

0.19  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.03  Tunnel RG, Oahu
 3.50  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
6.22  West Wailuaiki, Maui
6.59  Kawainui Stream, Big Island

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

14  Port Allen, Kauai
28  Kuaokala, Oahu
18  Molokai
27  Lanai
31  Kahoolawe
22  Kapalua, Maui
22  Waikoloa, Big Island

Here’s a wind profile of the Pacific Ocean – Closer view of the islands

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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There’s a counter-clockwise rotating low pressure system well north-northeast of the islands, which has an associated cold front stalled near the Big Island…with the next cold front showing up to the northwest of Hawaii

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Clouds over windward sections…clearing leeward areas

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Clouds bringing windward showers to the islands locally

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Showers falling over windward Maui County and the Big Island – Looping radar image


Marine Weather Statement…Maui County and Big Island windward waters / A north swell may produce surges in north facing harbors


~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

 

Happy New Year 2017!

 

The winds are rather cool today…and will weaken into the early part of the new week. Here’s the latest weather map, showing a weak high pressure cell just to the north-northwest. At the same time we see a low pressure center to the north-northeast of Hawaii, with its trailing cold front stretching into the area near the Big Island. The recent gusty trade winds will give way to lighter trade wind breezes into the new week. As we get into the middle of the week, our winds may become even lighter…as another weak cold front will move through the state during the second half of the upcoming work week. Cooler northeasterly winds will pick up in the wake of the cold front next weekend.

Showers will fall locally across Maui County and the Big Island, in association with moisture brought our way by a weakening cold front. Showers will focus their efforts along our windward coasts and slopes. Cool and mainly dry weather will prevail across Oahu and Kauai, although residual showers will hold on over the eastern  islands for another day or two. Relatively cool conditions in the wake of this front, along with fewer showers will slowly work their way down over Molokai and Maui tonight into Monday. We’ll likely see another cold front approach the state around Wednesday…bringing another round of windward showers our way for a couple of days. Drier and cooler weather will arrive Friday into next weekend.

Marine environment details: High-resolution model guidance suggests that small craft advisory (SCA) conditions will continue in the Alenuihaha Channel today and tonight, and the SCA has been extended there.

The current north-northeast swell will continue to decline today. A new north-northeast swell will arrive later today and peak tonight into Monday morning, with resulting surf expected to remain below advisory levels. Another north swell will arrive Wednesday and Wednesday night, with resulting surf also expected to remain below advisory levels. A small south-southwest swell will arrive Tuesday and continue into Wednesday, producing a rise in the surf on south facing shores

Friday Evening Film: There are several good films playing here on Maui now. The one I picked to see is a drama called Manchester By The Sea, starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Gretchen Mol…among many others. The synopsis: After the death of his older brother Joe, Lee Chandler is shocked to learn that Joe has made him sole guardian of his nephew Patrick. Taking leave of his job, Lee reluctantly returns to Manchester-by-the-Sea to care for Patrick, a spirited 16-year-old, and is forced to deal with a past that separated him from his wife Randi and the community where he was born and raised. Bonded by the man who held their family together, Lee and Patrick struggle to adjust to a world without him.

This film was very good, although rather tragic and painful throughout…laced with elements of humor at times too. It was a deeply emotional piece of work, led by Affleck’s great performance, who carried the film on his shoulders adeptly. As one critic said, the sadness of “Manchester by the Sea” is the kind of sadness that makes you feel more alive, rather than less, to the preciousness of things.” It was full of love, although achingly complex at times…showing through at just the right spots. As for a grade, I felt it rated a B+, a strong B+ grade in fact. Here’s the trailer so you can take a quick peek if you’d like.

 

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World-wide tropical cyclone activity…with storms showing up when active


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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 the NOAA 2016 Hurricane Season Summary for the Eastern Pacific Basin

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 the NOAA 2016 Hurricane Season Summary for the Central Pacific Basin

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 Biologist’s ant research provides long-term look at effects of climate change – The world of forest ants may provide a macrocosm of the complex reactions and interactions among species affected by global climate change, according to a research project involving Bowling Green State University biologist Dr. Shannon Pelini.

As escalating amounts of carbon dioxide are introduced into the atmosphere, a chain reaction is induced, leading to increasingly warmer temperatures, Pelini said. This is taking place at an alarming rate, making it more important than ever that we understand how climate change will affect our natural world.

Many scientists have attempted to tackle this issue by determining the thermal tolerance of various species, then predicting what will happen to them as our world warms. However, this approach as a way to understand nature has its drawbacks because one species never acts alone. Individuals are constantly interacting with other species and the environment in which they live, so comprehending how global change impacts these interactions is crucial to a holistic understanding.

Pelini and her colleagues have made significant progress in this direction with their new study, “Climatic Warming Destabilizes Forest Ant Communities,” which looks at complex interactions of ant communities and their responses to warming. The study was published in the Oct. 26 edition of the journal Science Advances.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Program for Ecosystem Research and the National Science Foundation, the long-term experiment looked at the interactions ants exhibit over nesting structures in two distinctly different geographical areas. As a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, and in collaboration with investigators from the University of Vermont, the University of Tennessee and North Carolina State University, Pelini designed and built large warming chambers within Harvard Forest in Massachusetts. These chambers were also replicated in Duke Forest in North Carolina to provide a comparison to the cooler Harvard Forest.

“It’s one of the biggest climate change experiments in the entire world, which is a really exciting thing to be a part of,” Pelini said. “We were shooting for understanding what goes on with ant communities that exist in a cooler northern latitude and how their responses compare to the same suite of species in populations that occur in the warmer lower latitude.”

The researchers, led by Dr. Sarah Diamond, now an assistant professor of biology at Case Western Reserve University, placed artificial nest boxes in the warming chambers and checked them once a month for five years to measure which species of ants were utilizing them. They were interested to see if the ant species in the nest boxes would differ depending on the intensity of the warming treatment.

“We literally put heaters around the forest floor and warmed the ant communities up to see what would happen so we could more precisely ask how extinction and colonization and occupancy of these local habitats change,” Pelini said.

In fact, Pelini and her colleagues found some interesting and unexpected results. In warmer chambers, there was more occupancy of heat-loving ants, which is intuitive. However, less expected was the amount of time those ants were remaining in one single nest. Typically, ant colonies are constantly competing with each other for prime nest habitat, which promotes resilience to environmental changes within the community. When one ant species, like the heat-lovers, remains in a nest for a long time, there is less resilience in the community and so it is more likely to fall apart following a disturbance event, Pelini said.

According to Pelini, these results occurred for two reasons. First, warming will create an environment that preferentially selects organisms with broader or higher thermal tolerances. Second, those species that will do well under warming conditions will also have more opportunities to interact with other species that may or may not do as well under those conditions. The latter is something that current climate change models cannot capture because they do not focus on the community as a whole.

“I think the most exciting part of this experiment is being able to just watch the community and how it responded,” Pelini said.

Ants play an important role in the ecosystem of forests, dispersing seeds and keeping soil aerated and as a food source for other animals, Pelini said.

Although the study provided a new understanding of how climate change is going to influence a group of vital invertebrates that inhabit our soil, there is still much more to understand about this system and how it will respond to change.

“Ants are very charismatic; we know a lot about their natural history, their physiology, and their ecology,” Pelini said. “And I think we’re doing a good job linking physiology or using physiology to monitor what the impacts of climate change are, but we need to do more with behavior. So, that’s one direction in which I’d like to see climate change research move.”