Weather Details and Aloha Paragraphs

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

Lihue, Kauai –  78F
Honolulu, Oahu –  83
Kaneohe, Oahu –  81
Kahului, Maui –  79
Hilo, Hawaii –  77
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii –  81

Kailua-Kona – 77F
Hilo, Hawaii – 72F

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

0.52 MOUNT WAIALEALE, KAUAI
0.56 POAMOHO 2, OAHU
0.04 MOLOKAI
0.02 LANAI
0.00 KAHOOLAWE
0.77 WEST WAILUAIKI, MAUI
0.44 HONOKAA, BIG ISLAND

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map…showing a 1029 millibar high pressure system located far to the NE of the islands Monday. This high will provide moderately strong trade winds through Tuesday.  Here’s a Weather Map Symbol page for clarification about what all those weather symbols mean on the map.

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. 

 

Full moon in Hawaii
Photo Credit: Konaboy

An upper level low pressure system, with the leftover moisture from an old cold front, combined forces…making for a locally wet Hawaiian Island weather picture Saturday.  Things dried out some Sunday, but a ton of high and middle level clouds made for continued cloudy conditions. Meanwhile, high pressure is well established to the north of Hawaii today, which will keep us in a breezy trade wind flow into Monday. As a matter of fact, the latest computer forecast models suggest that we’ll see the trade winds blowing through all of the new week ahead. 
 
A broad band of  high and lower level clouds will keep the state cloudy now…although it is in the process of thinning and even clearing in places late in the day Sunday. This satellite image shows this situation well.  While we’re looking at images…we can take a look at this latest looping radar picture as well…to see where the latest showers may be falling. The windward sides have seen most of the passing showers Sunday, although it was much less intense and widespread than Saturday’s deluge in places. 

It’s late Sunday afternoon here in Kula, Maui as I begin writing this pre-sunset commentary.  It was yet another day of rather dense clouds, which blanketed the islands from one end to the other. The weather forecast improves greatly, as the high clouds finally pull back Monday, leading the way into what looks like a mostly dry and pleasant week ahead. At the moment, up here in Kula, at 5pm, a bank of fog just rolled in, which is kind of nice. It’s been so cloudy here in the islands lately at night, that it’s been difficult to keep track of the status of the upcoming December full moon. As it turns out the full moon occurs Monday during the day here in the islands…so that it will be shining brightly above as soon as the clouds part way. I hope you have a great rest of your Sunday, and rest well tonight wherever you happen to be! I’ll be back before the crack of dawn Monday with your next weather narrative from paradise. Aloha for now…Glenn. 

Here’s a poem for you:

On Divination by Wind ~~~

My Complete Meteorology falls
open to the glossary, where tongue-tied
I’ve returned to linger on the lavish~~~

particularity of petrichor,
name for the smell of long-dry rocks under rain.
Improbable word!—but libraried up~~~

I swear I can smell it, green and vivid
as nectar, as if it sighed from the book
open across my lap. The chapped soul sighs,~~~

opens to knowing like stomata
to southerlies, runs unbodied beyond
my reading hour, beyond the library,~~~

to the moment I push the door open
and step out into the imminent weather,
the pressure’s plummet, the fresh gale~~~

tossing palm trees in slangy hosannas,
all in expectation for the first drops
to release that astonishing perfume~~~

whose name I savor, a canonization
improbable as blood from a stone.~~~

Kimberly Johnson, Michigan Quartly Review