June 26-27 2006

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

Lihue, Kauai – 84F
Honolulu, Oahu – 84
Kaneohe, Oahu – 84
Kahului, Maui – 91
Hilo, Hawaii – 83
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii – 84

Temperatures early Tuesday morning ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level at the 4 a.m. hour:

Kailua-kona – 78
Kahului, Maui – 73

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

0.49 MOUNT WAIALEALE, KAUAI
0.17 MANOA LYON ARBORETUM, OAHU
0.00 MOLOKAI
0.00 LANAI
0.00 KAHOOLAWE
0.08 OHEO GULCH, MAUI
0.20 KAMUELA UPPER, BIG ISLAND

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map…showing high pressure systems generally to the north of our islands. An upper level trough of low pressure continues moving away, so that the trade winds are filling in behind now…with trade winds blowing through Wednesday and beyond. 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 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 cloud conditions.

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.

Tropical Cyclone Activity – The eastern Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15 through November 30…while the central Pacific runs from June 1 through November 30. The latest storm information for eastern Pacific can be found by clicking here. A storm tracking map can be found by clicking here. For the central Pacific, the latest information can be found by clicking here.

Aloha Paragraphs

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So beautiful!
Photo credit: flikr.com

An unusual trough of low pressure kept our weekend weather rather muggy and shower prone. The unusual aspect was that this area of low pressure kept our trade winds blowing at a bare minimum. As a matter of fact, the trade winds disappeared completely in some places, making for sultry conditions near sea level. I wouldn’t call what happened rare, although I would go so far as to call it unusual, barely staying out of the very unusual realm! The trade winds typically blow almost all the time during a normal June, making for rather interesting conditions both Saturday and Sunday.

The trough of low pressure, which cut off our trade winds, is now migrating westward, and should be out of our area by Tuesday. The Big Island, and the islands of Maui County, will find the trade winds returning later today. This will start to bring relief from the muggy conditions of late, as the cooling and refreshing trade wind breezes fill back into the eastern side of the island chain. The islands of Oahu and Kauai will have to wait until Tuesday for this to happen. The latest computer forecast models suggest that the trades will stick around through the rest of June, into the first part of July…at least.

We saw another influence from the trough as well, which turned out to be some locally heavy showers. Both weekend days started off nicely, with beautiful sunny mornings prevailing just about everywhere. As the sun got higher in the sky however, clouds started to form over and around the mountains, which spread down to the coasts locally. The presence of the relatively cold air aloft, associated with the trough, made those clouds pretty shower prone in many areas. The islands of Kauai and Oahu had the most precipitation, with a couple of the wetter areas there receiving one to near two inch amounts. As the trough moves away, our weather will settle back into a more normal state for this time of year, with just those usual passing showers along the windward sides.

It’s early Monday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin today’s sunset commentary. Let me start off by saying that the Kahului airport, here on Maui, reached 91F degrees for a high temperature today. That may sound hot, and I’m sure it felt hot to folks there, although it fell short of the record high temperature for the date by two degrees. The beaches in Kihei and Lahaina reached at least that level, and may have topped it by a degree. I had a chance to go to the beach at lunch, and it was simply great. You know, when you get in the ocean during the winter months, you sort of hesitate when your foot reaches the water, because it feels cool at first. Well, now, at least today, when my foot touched the water, my first thought was “it feels warm.” There wasn’t much wind, and with the hot air temperatures, it was such a pleasure to dip into those, what I call, healing waters. I’ve been invited next door for dinner, so I’d best be getting on over there, I hope you have a great Monday night! I’ll be back early Tuesday morning with your next new narrative. Aloha for now…Glenn.

By the way, all but two of the businesses who had advertising links on my site during the spring months, have remained active during this new three month summer period. One of those two will be coming back this winter, when the tax season spins-up again then. I just counted the number of links, and there is room for two more businesses to join the ranks on the left hand margin of all the pages, and there are lots of them. I’m going to open the registration period up again through these last few days of June, and then it will be closed until September. I want to thank those businesses (new and old) who are now a part of the Hawaii Weather Today team…I will be highlighting each of them individually soon. They are all good folks, and are supporting my efforts in keeping these pages updated daily, so please check out their sites and support them for supporting you and I both.