Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs

Kealakekua Bay…on the Big Island
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

The trade winds will grace the southern islands, with lighter winds on the Kauai end of the state. The Big Island and Maui will see a light to almost moderately strong easterly trade winds, while Oahu and Kauai, closer to a high pressure ridge just to our north…will have lighter winds in general. Cold fronts moving by to the north of the state will keep this ridge close to, or just north of the islands through the week. The modestly strong trades will help to ventilate away some of the haze that has plagued the southern part of the Aloha state.  

There will be a few light showers along the windward sides of the islands, otherwise remaining dry most areas. Days will start off clear to partly cloudy, with daytime heating of the islands, aided by the onshore sea breezes, starting clouds forming over and around the mountains during the afternoons. These clouds won’t drop many showers though, and will clear up again during the night. Whatever few showers that fall will spread themselves out between those upcountry areas during the afternoons…and a few along the windward sides where the trade winds are active.

It’s Tuesday evening as I begin updating this last paragraph of today’s narrative. Taking a look at this weather map, we find our trade wind producing high pressure ridge just to the north of Kauai now. As can be seen on that map, this ridge extends from a rather robust 1029 millibar high pressure system, located offshore from the San Francisco Bay. The high will stay around in that same area, although the ridge will migrate around some, stretching from near Kauai, to points a little further north at times. The placement of this high pressure ridge will determine how far into the state the trade winds will manage to get. At the moment, they are blowing over the Big Island end of the island chain, reaching up over Maui, and on to Oahu during the days. The good news about this, is that the trade winds are helping to ventilate away some of the volcanic haze. Additionally, it may help to bring back a few showers to the windward sides, which have been extremely dry for well over a week now. ~~~ I’ve received many questions lately about whether the Humpback Whales are still around, and the answer is yes. I’m not a whale expert, but my understanding is that they are around through March and into April. Several kind and informed folks responded in the area down the page from here, and I want to send out a hearty thanks to each! ~~~ Tuesday was a nice day here in the islands. When I went down near the beach at lunch, and sat and watched the blue ocean, my car thermometer in Kihei, Maui, read 90F degrees! That was on the pavement of course, although it sure felt every degree of that summer-like number. As I sat there, I saw at least one big splash offshore, as a whale breached, what a sight! ~~~ I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn. 

Interesting: Even Superman couldn’t stop a hurricane in its tracks. But now, if another Katrina comes along, we may be able to send it back out to sea before it can hurt us, thanks to the work of climate research teams based in the U.S. and Israel. The researchers claim that by dropping a planeload of soot into the frozen cloud at the top of the hurricane, they could slow the hurricane down and change its path, preventing damage to major cities. Their plans aren’t fully formed quite yet, but once they iron out the details, these researchers could have the capacity to send hurricanes back where they came from — so maybe you can hold onto your beach house in Florida, after all.

Interesting2: Studying rice may not sound like the world’s most exciting job. But think again: One plant biologist, Dr. Monty Jones, has made the study of rice his life’s work — and as a result of his amazing innovations in the field, he’s dramatically improved the lives of millions of farmers and the general population throughout West Africa. Dr. Jones, 56, a native of Sierra Leone, spent years traveling with his team from farm to farm, all over Africa and Asia. They painstakingly classified each and every variety of rice plant they discovered. (Not a small task: The rare O. glaberrima species alone has over 1,500 varieties.) Finally, Dr. Jones and his team set to work developing a hardy hybrid that could deal with droughts, weeds, and poor soil — all of which are common plant-killers in Africa. The resulting crop is NERICA (New Rices for Africa), a fast-growing, high-yield grain that can easily survive even the driest African seasons. The new rice will provide nutrition to millions of people in famine-striken Africa, and will save $200 million in importation costs. True, a grain of rice isn’t very big — but when it comes to making a difference in Africa, a little bit of rice can go a very long way.

Interesting3: Most scientists tend to shy away from talk of extraterrestrials — but not astronomer Margaret Turnbull, who’s spent her entire career at NASA studying the galaxy for signs of life on other planets. Last year, she announced a list of 11 "habstars" — habitable stars with environments very similar to Earth’s — narrowed down from a list of more than 17,000. Thanks to her research, astronomers at the Seti Institute will have a great head start when they begin scanning the skies for alien life forms with the Allen Telescope Array, a powerful device that can pick up on radio signals from other planets. And if they happen to come across a real-life version of E.T., the candy-loving creature from outer space, we’ll have Turnbull to thank for the introduction.