June 20-21, 2010
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across
Lihue, Kauai – 84
Honolulu, Oahu – 86
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Kaunakakai, Molokai – 84
Kahului, Maui – 87
Hilo, Hawaii – 79
Kailua-kona – 81
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level around
Port Allen, Kauai – 84
Hilo, Hawaii – 76
Haleakala Crater – missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 45 (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)
Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Sunday afternoon:
0.63 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.10 Moanalua RG, Oahu
0.01 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.13 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.79 Waiakea Uka, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a large 1032 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. This will keep moderately strong trade winds blowing through Tuesday…locally stronger and gusty during the afternoons.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with this Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.
Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Here’s a tracking map covering both the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here. Of course, as we know, our hurricane season won’t begin again until June 1st here in the central Pacific.
Aloha Paragraphs
Trade wind weather continues…on Fathers Day
The trade winds will continue to blow across our islands, with a gradual strengthening Tuesday through Thursday. Small craft wind advisories remain active in those windiest areas in the southern part of the state Sunday night. The NWS forecast office in
The windward sides will see a few showers…most notably during the night and early morning hours. As this IR satellite image shows, there are relatively few clouds around the islands…most of which are taking aim on the Big Island and Maui’s windward sides. This looping radar image shows scattered showers moving through the state…on the easterly trade winds. This larger view of the central Pacific shows just a few minor thunderstorms in the deeper tropics. Otherwise, we’ll find lots of daytime sunshine, and good weather at our local beaches.
It’s Sunday evening as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative update. We’ll find fairly normal weather conditions here in the islands Sunday into Monday. Moving into Tuesday, we’ll see generally good weather conditions, with gradually increasing wind speeds…along with a modest increase in windward biased showers for several days.
~~~ The eastern Pacific Ocean has its third and fourth tropical cyclones of the 2010 hurricane season. This satellite image shows their presence, along with a graphical track map. The National Hurricane Center in Miami is showing tropical depression Blas on a weakening trend, while hurricane Celia is strengthening. The good news is that neither of these tropical cyclones will have any bearing on the Hawaiian Islands…here in the central Pacific through at least the next week.
~~~ Sunday is the last full day of spring, as we move into the first day of summer early Monday morning. This transition into our summer season will be transparent, with little change expected in our local weather conditions. We will be getting a bit windier as we move through the upcoming week, and could see some increase in our windward showers through the mid-week period. Otherwise steady as she goes, with no end to our trade wind weather pattern in sight.
~~~ Last but certainly not least, here’s wishing all of you Dad’s out there a wonderful Father’s Day! This goes out especially to my own Dad, Ed James, who lives with my Mom Dorothy…in Long Beach, California. I hope you all have a great Sunday on this special day of the year! I’ll meet you here early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative. Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: More than five tons of illegal bush meat is being smuggled in personal luggage each week through one of Europe’s busiest airports, reveals new research published in Conservation Letters. Working alongside customs officials at France’s Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) and The National Veterinary School and the Natural History Museum of Toulouse identified eleven bush meat species from confiscated luggage, including species of primate, crocodiles and pangolins.
This study quantifies for the first time the illegal trade of bush meat through a European airport. 134 passengers were searched from 29 flights over a period of 17 days. The single largest confiscation was of 51kg of bush meat carried by a single passenger with no other luggage.
"Our results estimate that around 270 tons of potentially contaminated illegal bush meat is passing unchecked through a single European airport per year, posing a huge potential risk to public health," says lead author Dr Anne-Lise Chaber, from ZSL and the RVC. The Central African Republic, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo were identified as the main sources of bush meat.
The researchers conducted conversations with three traders in Paris revealing that, as well as street trading, traders take orders in advance and arrange delivery of the goods to the customer. Co-author Dr Marcus Rowcliffe from ZSL says: "Our results show that this is a lucrative, organized trade feeding into a luxury market; a 4kg monkey will cost around €100 in France, compared with just €5 in Cameroon."
He adds: "Importing bush meat is relatively easy as customs officials are given no financial incentives to uncover illegal meat imports, compared with the bonuses they’re awarded for drug and counterfeit seizures. Also, penalties are very low for people caught carrying illegal meat." 39 per cent of the confiscated bush meat was identified as being listed under the Convention for the Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), highlighting the unsustainable nature of the trade and its potential impact on species of conservation concern.
In addition to wildlife conservation concerns, the illegal trade of such large quantities of bush meat raises serious questions about the importation of pathogens into Europe. "Surveillance methods need to be more robust and deterrents more severe if we’re to have any chance of halting this illegal trade," says co-author Dr Andrew Cunningham, from ZSL.
This is the first systematic study of the volume and nature of the international bush meat trade. The researchers now wish to undertake a wider-scale study with greater geographic coverage to determine the overall volume of the illegal bush meat trade into Europe.
Interesting2: New research by scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) shows that malaria is tens of thousands of years older than previously thought. An international team, led by researchers at Imperial College London, have found that the potentially deadly tropical disease evolved alongside anatomically modern humans and moved with our ancestors as they migrated out of Africa around 60-80,000 years ago.
The research is published in the journal Current Biology. The findings and the techniques in the study could be important in informing current control strategies aimed at reducing the prevalence of malaria. There are an estimated 230 million cases each year, causing between 1 and 3 million deaths, and around 1.4bn people are considered to be at risk of infection.
Dr Francois Balloux from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling at Imperial College London was lead researcher on the project. He said: "Most recent work to understand how malaria has spread across the tropics has worked on the premise that the disease arose alongside the development of agriculture around 10,000 years ago.
Our research shows that the malaria parasite has evolved and spread alongside humans and is at least as old as the event of the human expansion out of Africa 60-80,000 years ago." The international team worked on the largest collection of malaria parasites ever assembled. By characterising them by DNA sequencing they were able to track the progress of malaria across the tropics and to calculate the age of the parasite.
The scientists discovered clear correlation of decreasing genetic diversity with distance from sub-Saharan Africa. This accurately mirrored the same data for humans suggesting strong evidence of co-evolution and migration. Dr Balloux said: "The genetic sequencing of the malaria parasite shows a geographic spread pattern with striking similarities to studies on humans.
This points to a shared geographic origin, age and route of spread around the world. This understanding is important because despite the prevalence and deadly impact of malaria little research has previously been done to understand the genetic variation of the parasite. The genetic diversity of malaria parasites is central to their threat as it helps them to overcome the immune system and to develop drug resistance, making this research vital in informing new and more effective control strategies."
Interesting3: The Gulf of Mexico: what role will the Mississippi River play in oil washing ashore and into delta wetlands? One of the spill’s greatest environmental threats is to Louisiana’s wetlands, scientists believe. But there may be good news ahead. Scientists affiliated with the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED), a National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center headquartered at the University of Minnesota, are using long-term field plots in Louisiana’s Wax Lake Delta to measure the baseline conditions of, and track the effects of the oil spill on, coastal Louisiana wetlands.
Robert Twilley and Guerry Holm of Louisiana State University (LSU) are investigating the degree to which two delta wetland characteristics may help mitigate oil contamination. Fresh water head, as it’s called, the slope of the water’s surface from a river delta to the sea, and residence time of river-mouth wetlands, the time it takes water to move through a wetland at a river’s mouth, are important to understanding how delta wetlands will respond to the oil spill, say the researchers.
"Since the Mississippi River is currently at a relatively high stage, we expect the river’s high volume of freshwater to act as a hydrologic barrier, keeping oil from moving into the Wax Lake Delta from the sea," says Twilley. Twilley and Holm are performing baseline and damage assessments on the plants and soils of, and comparing oil degradation processes in, freshwater and saltwater Louisiana wetlands.
"The Mississippi River’s ‘plumbing’ provides a potential benefit to reducing the movement of oil onshore from shelf waters," says Twilley. The Mississippi’s flow has been altered for flood control to protect people and infrastructure in this working delta. River diversion structures–concrete gates built within the levees of the river–may be operated, however, to allow water to flow to specific coastal basins and floodways, says Twilley, "as a way to provide controlled floods."
The operational features of this system "downriver to the control structure near Venice, Louisiana," he says, "may provide a second line of defense against oil washing in." But any strategy using Mississippi River hydrology must be one of clear options and tradeoffs, says H. Richard Lane, program director in NSF’s Division of Earth Sciences, which funds NCED.
"As the river stage falls and protection diminishes," says Lane, "it becomes a question of how best to distribute this freshwater resource to defend the coast from the movement of oil onshore." The answer, Twilley says, lies in the delicate balance of river, coastal and Gulf of Mexico processes "that must work in concert to benefit the incredible ‘ecosystem services’ this region provides to the nation."
Louisiana wetlands "play a vital role in protecting New Orleans from hurricane damage, providing habitat for wildlife, supporting economically important fisheries, and maintaining water quality," says Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, director of NCED. "We must look at all options for protecting them for the future.
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