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

78 – 68  Lihue, Kauai
81 – 69  Honolulu, Oahu
76 - 65  Molokai AP
79 – 66  Kahului, Maui
83 – 69  Kailua Kona
76 – 67  Hilo, Hawaii

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

0.34  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.78  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.47  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.91  Hana AP, Maui
2.84  Kawainui Stream, Big Island


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


25  Port Allen, Kauai – NE
27  Honolulu AP, Oahu – NE
30  Molokai – NNE
32  Lanai – NE
30  Kahoolawe – NNE
30  Kapalua, Maui – NE
35  Kealakomo, Big Island – NE


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


http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg
Low clouds will increase across the windward sides again tonight


http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
Windward biased showers for the most part…
nothing heavy



~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~



Small Craft Advisory…for waters around Maui County
and the Big Island


A trade wind weather pattern…with lighter winds turning southeast by mid-week. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a real-time wind profiler of the central Pacific. We find a high pressure system to the north of the state. At the same time, we have a low pressure systems to the northeast and north, with the tail-end of a dissipating cold front over the waters just south of the island chain. This cold front has ushered in a period of northeast winds in its wake…although they won’t last long. The winds will become lighter from the southeast by mid-week, which may bring volcanic haze (vog) back over our area then for several days. The weather map also shows gale low pressure systems far to the northwest, with an elongated cold front stretched across the ocean well to the northwest of us. This next cold front won’t get here until later in the week…with generally light winds accompanying it statewide into the weekend.

Clouds and showers will likely increase tonight into early Tuesday morning, with fewer clouds and showers thereafter…while the leeward sides will remain quite dry. Here’s the looping radar image showing just a few light showers…which are being carried our way on the trade winds. These trades filling in behind the recent front, will bring showers to our windward sides…especially over the Big Island, Maui and Oahu. Then drier weather will take over statewide for several days. The light winds will limit shower activity along the windward sections, as they gravitate towards the upcountry interior areas…although nothing very generous. The latest computer model output continues to show another cold front approaching Kauai late Thursday…which should bring an increase in showers Friday into the weekend. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Here in Kula, Maui: It’s mostly clear overhead this morning, although I can see low clouds and showers falling along the windward sides here on Maui. The air temperature near its minimal reading this morning was 48.7 degrees, while at the same time down near the ocean in Kahului…it was a warmer 68 degrees. A little later in the morning I can see that it’s a very clear day for a change, with absolutely no sign of volcanic haze. The air temperature has risen to 58.1 degrees at 935am, with totally clear skies over much of the island. ~~~ Well, here it is early afternoon, and I just came down from skateboarding on the slopes of the Haleakala Crater. It was very clear up there when I first arrived, supporting some good skating runs. However, as the morning wore on, the clouds started lowering. It wasn’t long before those clouds become thick fog, which makes the road too slick to skate on…so I headed back home. Here in Kula, it’s partly to mostly cloudy, with light breezes, and an air temperature of 68 degrees at 1250pm. At more or less the same time, down at the Kahului airport, it was 78 degrees. ~~~ Ok, we’ve pushed into the early evening hours now at 540pm, under partly cloudy skies, with an temperature of 64.9 degrees. At the same time, the temperature up on the summit of the Haleakala Crater was 55 degrees…while the Kahului airport down near the ocean was 76 degrees.


World-wide tropical cyclone activity:


>>> Atlantic Ocean: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

>>> Caribbean Sea: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


>>> Gulf of Mexico: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico.

>>> Eastern Pacific: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 North Pacific hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on May 15, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


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, 2015. During the off-season, special tropical weather outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.


Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)


>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones


 >>> South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones

>>> North and South Indian Oceans:  Tropical cyclone 08S is now active, here’s the JTWC graphical track map for this strengthening tropical storm. Here’s the Navy satellite image of this system…to the southeast of Diego Garcia in the South Indian Ocean.

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

 

Interesting:  Electric range-extended trucks can double fuel economy - When it comes to electric vehicles, we hear plenty about electric cars being launched into the consumer market but not too much about commercial vehicles. Maybe that’s because not too many people have to concern themselves with what type of delivery or garbage truck they are going to buy next. Nevertheless, such considerations matter, since the electrification of commercial fleets promises considerably larger efficiency gains than cars.


Four-year-old California company Wrightspeed, started by Tesla co-founder Ian Wright, has developed a technology that zeros in on a specific niche of the commercial fleet market, bringing both fuel savings and emissions mitigation for commercial fleet operators.


Coming from his background at Tesla, Wright remains convinced of the benefits of going electric, but he recognizes that EVs can be perceived as expensive in some markets. In starting Wrightspeed, he says the mission was to figure out, “How do you get more bang for your buck?” And the answer was to just focus on building power-trains for trucks.


Staying true to vehicle electrification, Wrightspeed’s power train combines powerful electric motors and batteries, but in order to cover the distances commercial trucks run, the power-train incorporates a gas-turbine range extender; the whole package is then retrofitted into vehicles from truck OEMs. While the company sources the gas-turbine extender and batteries from outside, the electric motors, inverters, transmission and control electronics are all of the company’s own design.


The nearest automobile equivalent using range extending technology is the Chevrolet Volt, and Wrightspeed’s solution shares a similar concept whereby the range-extending motor (although of an entirely different design) acts as an electricity generator for the vehicle batteries, rather than driving the wheels directly.


Of course, since Wrightspeed’s power-trains are going into trucks, the whole thing is on a much beefier scale. Wright told me, “Our motors have four times the power-to-weight ratio than anything else available.” Additionally, like most EVs, their technology uses regenerative braking — which puts energy back into the batteries every time the brakes are applied.


Consequently, Wrightspeed’s technology lends itself particularly well to commercial vehicle applications where frequent start-stop cycles occur — a feature common with a typical package delivery or garbage truck. “A thousand horsepower easily goes into the brakes of a commercial truck,” when such vehicles are brought to a stop, says Wright. In a conventional truck, that energy is wasted, but when you consider 1,000 horsepower is the equivalent of about fives times the peak horsepower of most family cars, that’s worth capturing.


The energy captured by regenerative braking is fed back into the lithium-ion phosphate batteries Wrightspeed uses — a battery chemistry particularly suitable for developing the high power necessary for their electric-drive motors. When the batteries are depleted, the range extender kicks in which is calibrated to run constantly at the most efficient speed to generate the most power. A benefit of using a gas-turbine range extender is that it runs very quietly — considerably quieter than a diesel engine, Wright said, which is a worthy attribute when trundling through residential areas.


So, what does all this add up to in terms of efficiency? Wright told me the average garbage truck travels about 130 miles a day with around 1,000 hard stops, gulping down around 14,000 gallons of diesel a year in the process. Wrightspeed’s power-trains use less than half that amount of fuel, with the added benefit of very significant emissions reductions.


This last point is very important. California’s strict standards on vehicle emissions means that a truck purchased as recently as 2006 is likely no longer compliant with emissions regulations today. By comparison, Wright says their range extending power-trains achieve a 3.5 times improvement over what California currently demands.


This allows the company to potentially tap into a lucrative market of retrofitting older existing vehicles. Wright explained to me that retrofitting commercial vehicles for emissions compliance is a $5 billion industry. And while their power-trains are expensive up front, retrofitting that 2006 truck, say, works out to be about half as expensive as upgrading to a brand new one. On top of that are the ongoing fuel savings: Wright says their technology is cost-effective for vehicles using 4,000 gallons or more of fuel per year.


Wrightspeed’s first customer was Fed-Ex, which began purchasing power-trains for some of its vehicles about a year ago. Additionally, the company is working with a north Bay Area garbage collection company, which approached Wrightspeed after recognizing its power-trains would be an optimal fit for the company’s fleet.