Weather Details & Aloha Paragraphs

April 30-May 1 2007

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. 

Aloha Paragraphs

 
     A Shower Tree…in Napili, Maui

Photo Credit: Flikr.com

The trade winds, after being a little lighter this past weekend, will increase in strength over the next couple of days. This new increase in trade wind speeds will take us out through the first half of this new week. Winds will be strongest starting Monday night through Wednesday. Those windiest areas in the southern part of the state may see small craft wind advisories going into force by Tuesday. A late season cold front will be moving by to the north, up in the middle latitudes during the second half of the week. This front won’t make down to the islands, but will be responsible for helping to bring down our local winds a notch or two starting Thursday…and perhaps even veering them to the ESE or SE over the Kauai end of the island chain.

The bias for showers will remain fixed on the north and east facing windward coasts and slopes for the time being…at least for the most part.  Often when the trade winds surge a bit, like they will be doing over the next couple of days…we see an increase in showers. Typically these passing showers are moving along quickly enough, that there isn’t any worry of flooding problems. Although, here and there we could see a briefly heavy little downpour, especially during the night and early morning hours. Later in the week, as the winds soften and start coming up from a more SE direction, we could see some increase in showers locally. All things considered though, this looks to be a perfectly fine week of weather for the islands!

It’s early Monday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this sunset commentary.  Sunny, sunny, sunny! Lots of our famous Hawaiian sunshine was beaming down today, rising air temperatures into the mid 80F’s in several places near sea level…with a couple of the warmer places on Maui topping even a couple of degrees above that. It’s starting to feel more and more like summer already, and now with south swells arriving along our leeward beaches, that pretty much cinches the deal. Late spring can sometimes be very similar to the summer months, which can be quite like the early autumn months as well. Winter is quite unique actually, although there can be days even then that remind us of summer! That’s the tropics for you, and why so many people want to live down here in these southern latitudes of the north central Pacific. It certainly grabbed my attention way back in the middle 1970’s when I first experienced the trade winds, the plumeria flowers, the beauty of the shower trees, the gently passing showers along the windward sides, the pleasure of a warm ocean, the coolness of the upcountry area, and the openness of Hawaii’s citizens…experiencing the wonderful Aloha Spirit. I’m hooked, and have loved being here ever since. The sun is just going down, and it’s time for this Maui weatherman to get out onto his weather deck to witness the event. I hope you are well, whether the sun is just now going down for your too, or it may have set hours and hours ago. I’ll be back dark and early Tuesday morning with your next weather narrative from paradise. Aloha for now…Glenn.

TV weather show online now: At long last, my tv weather program is available on the internet! It’s not exactly like watching your TV set, but it’s a fairly close approximation. Each day’s new show will replace the previous days show (Monday through Friday) at some point between 10am and noon (HST) here in Hawaii. If you click here, it will take you to the website where it can be viewed. I want to thank the kind folks at the Maui Media Lab, located in Paia, Maui for this opportunity to show what’s happening weatherwise here in Hawaiian Islands! By the way, you will need to have a quicktime viewer on your computer to view the feed…you can get the free download here if it’s not already loaded on your machine.