April 13-14 2006

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across Hawaii Thursday:

Lihue, Kauai – 78F
Honolulu, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 86
Kahului, Maui – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 73
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii – 84

Temperatures early Friday morning ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level at the 5 a.m. hour:

Kailua-kona – 75
Hilo airport – 65

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals during the last 24 hours (as of Friday morning) on each of the major islands, including:

0.45 MOUNT WAIALEALE, KAUAI
0.01 KAHUKU, OAHU
0.00 MOLOKAI
0.00 LANAI
0.00 KAHOOLAWE
0.31 WEST WAILUAIKI, MAUI
0.88 GLENWOOD, BIG ISLAND

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map…showing a 1034 millibar high pressure system to the north of Hawaii. This high pressure cell will cause moderate to locally strong and gusty strong trade winds to blow Friday into Saturday. Here’s a Weather Map Symbol page for clarification about what all those funny weather symbols mean.

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 only available during the daylight hours here in the islands…that is unless there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two!

Satellite Images – To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean…out from the islands. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image.

Aloha Paragraphs

niceness
Breaching Humpback Whale…



The trade winds are here to stay, thanks to a long lasting high pressure system, which remains nearly stationary far to the north of the Hawaiian Islands. Wind speeds will vary in strength, between night and day, and also between morning and afternoons. In general though, we will have rather strong and gusty winds blowing across the Aloha state. These breezy trade winds will range between about 10-25 overall, with gusts topping the 30 mph mark at times. Those windiest spots around the state will find gusts to 40+ mph. In response, the NWS forecast office in Honolulu is keeping the small craft advisory active across most of the marine environment.

The latest computer forecast model output shows these trade winds blowing through the rest of this week. We should see them mellowing out a little as we move into the weekend time frame. They will continue to fan the islands right through next week as well. As I’ve been pointing out the last few days, this is all pretty normal for this time of year. The spring, and summer months too, are well known for having breezy trade wind weather. All this wind keeps the coconut palm trees swaying to and fro, as well as keeping the ocean surrounding the islands, chopped-up with white caps.

The windward sides will continue to see some passing shower activity. This too is very common during the month of April. Those north and east facing shores and slopes have actually been quite moist so far this week. It appears that the showers will finally start to ease up some now. The leeward beaches, and I should say in contrast, have been mostly dry…and will stay that way. The one minor problem has been persistent high cloudiness, which has kept our Hawaiian sunshine from beaming down fully. This will still be around, but seems to have moved east enough now, that we should find sunnier weather.

It’s early Thursday evening as I begin this evening’s sunset commentary. It was a fully sunny day along the leeward sides of most of the islands today…really sunny! The windward sides in contrast, were partly to mostly cloudy, with light showers or misty drizzle falling. When I drove up the Haleakala Highway on the way home from work, there were rainbows galore on the Makawao and Haiku side of the road. This weather pattern, with its strong trade winds, are fairly typical for the month of April. Speaking of strong winds, the Kawaihae area on the Big Island had wind gusting to 51 mph during the afternoon hours. Here on Maui, there were gusts over 40 mph at Maalaea Bay at times. I just love that picture of the breaching whale above, it really captures the flight and power that these amazing creatures exhibit when they’re “doing their thang.” They are mostly gone now, but a few loners are still around in places. This last weekend I saw only one, so most of them have left, heading up to Alaska for the summer. I got down to the beach today, and found the waters to be very clean and clear, and seasonably warm too. I hope you had a great day wherever you happened to have spent it. I’ll be back with the Friday edition of this narrative early in the morning, at least here in the islands, and hope that you will join me here again then. Aloha for now…Glenn

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