Weather Details & Aloha Paragraphs

Although the trade winds are a little lighter now, they will still bring their cooling and refreshing relief from the early summer heat. The latest weather map shows a 1030 millibar high pressure system located far to the NW of the Aloha state…which is the source of these locally breezy winds. The trades will remain at more or less moderate strengths through the first half of the week. The latest computer forecast models indicate that they will become stronger during the second half of the week, probably necessitating small craft wind advisories in those windiest place around the state then. The trade winds typically blow on average around 95% of the time during the month of July. 

Despite the few showers that we’ve seen at times recently, along the windward sides principally, conditions remain dry across most areas of Hawaii.  We’ve certainly been very happy to see these incoming showery clouds, carried in our direction by the trade winds…no doubt about that! Anytime that we have the trade winds blowing, there’s always that chance of a few showers falling…and that will continue to be the case this week. As a matter of fact, as the trade winds surge during the second half of the week, we may be lucky enough to see some marginal increase in windward showers arriving then. The leeward sides will be dry, except along the Kona side of the Big Island, where some afternoon or early evening showers may continue to grace those coffee plantations there.

The south and west facing leeward beaches will see larger than normal surf breaking today into Tuesday. A couple of significant storms during the last two weeks, down near New Zealand, generated this larger than normal swell episode. There will be several parts to this surf event, the first peaked this past weekend, with a second aspect arriving Monday night…which will keep this surf coming our way through most of this July 4th week. Folks using our local beaches, especially those not used to being in large waves…should exercise caution when entering the ocean where that type of surf is breaking. The NWS forecast office in Honolulu is continuing its high surf advisory for those leeward beaches, which should remain in force for many more days.

It’s Monday here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative. As noted in the paragraphs above, the three main weather elements in our Hawaiian Island weather picture now continue to be, the dry weather, the prevailing trade wind flow…and the larger than normal south swell waves along our leeward beaches. None of this turns out to be unusual for this summer month of July in the tropics of the north central Pacific. ~~~ Fortunately there have been a few showers falling here and there around the 50th state, although the unfortunate part of it is that it hasn’t been enough to push back our drought conditions…and it hasn’t been falling those driest locations. The trade winds fortunately have been strong enough to temper the afternoon heat in the lowlands, and that they will continue into the foreseeable future. The south swell waves have been large enough, in most places, to keep the surfing community happy, and fortunately not so large that any of our visitors have been hurt by it. ~~~ The one thing that I’m most worried about, at least in terms of weather here in the islands, is the threat of wild fire. The things working against us in that regard, are the very dry and tender conditions of many of our leeward areas; the gusty nature of our trade winds; the excessive amount of available fuel, in the form of dead grass and bushes; and finally, and the worst part…the upcoming fireworks activity during the 4th of July holiday! I just hope that folks will be extremely careful not to set off wild fires when they light their fireworks this year. ~~~ I’ll be back early Tuesday morning with your next weather narrative, I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.