Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs

The Kona coast on the Big Island of Hawaii
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

Light trade winds filter into the state from the east now. Our trade wind producing ridge of high pressure is located a distance north of Kauai Thursday evening, allowing a drift of air from the east over the state. There will be little change in the direction or strength of these breezes for the time being. There looks to be some changes around the middle of next week, when a fairly meaningful cloud band pushes through the state…opening the flood gates for stronger trade winds then through the rest of the week. 
 
Other than a few showers here and there…conditions will remain very dry well into the future. A few showers will get carried into the windward sides, although they won’t amount to much. The light trade winds won’t inhibit clouds from forming over and around the mountains during the afternoons in most areas. These cumulus buildups may look threatening, becoming pretty dark late in the day…but won’t do much more than that. A frontal passage later next week may bring a change in this dry weather pattern, with wet trade winds thereafter.

It’s Thursday evening as I begin updating this last paragraph of today’s narrative.  We’re moving through a late winter weather pattern here in the islands now. The trade winds, albeit on the light side, will grace Hawaii through the remainder of this week. The overlying atmosphere, as it has been for well over a week, remains dry and stable. These ingredients continue to give us favorably inclined weather conditions. I’m sure everyone is happy with this reality, including both the local residents, and our visitors here on vacation. I see little change in this light trade wind pattern going forward, taking us at least through the rest of this week. ~~~ Looking ahead, the trade winds will start next week, and probably end the week as well. The latest computer forecast models are now suggesting that we’ll see some sort of weather action in between though. The winds will likely turn from the trade wind direction later next Tuesday or Wednesday, towards the southeast, and then perhaps all the way around to the south and SW kona directions…ahead of an active Pacific frontal cloud band. This front could bring wet weather to the Aloha state around next Thursday, followed by cool north winds. These northerlies will quickly become trade winds thereafter…with the chance of wet conditions continuing along the windwad sides. The leeward sides will clear out nicely, with sunny weather returning. All of this is really too far into the future to get all worked up over at this point, and may need major revisions between now and then! ~~~ Thursday was a great day here in the islands, with the trade winds keeping the coconut palm fronds swaying to and fro. There was glorious Hawaiian sunshine beaming down, just about everywhere, with just enough puffy cumulus clouds around, to beautify or local skies. It is warm now in the islands, with high temperatures rising into the low 80F’s…with a few of the warmest leeward beaches flirting with 85F degrees! I see no good reason to think that Friday won’t be a more or less carbon copy of today. ~~~ I’ll be back very early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then!  Aloha for now…Glenn. 

Incredible…try it and see!

Interesting: They may not be gas-guzzlers, but electric cars have a raging thirst for water.  A comparison of the volume of coolant water used in the thermoelectric power plants that provide most of our electricity and that used in extracting and refining petroleum suggests that electric vehicles require significantly more water per mile than those powered by gasoline.  The findings could bode ill for drought stricken areas in the event of a large scale switch to plug-in vehicles.  "I wouldn’t sound the alarm that this is going to ruin the day," says Carey King from the University of Texas, Austin, US, noting that no mass-market electric vehicle is currently available. "But looking into the future, this is something we should take into account."  King and colleagues found that cars, light trucks, and SUVs running off the electric grid consume three times more water and withdraw 17 times more water per mile than their equivalent gasoline-powered vehicles.

Interesting2: It finally happened this week. The price of oil passed the all-time inflation-adjusted peak of $103.76 that was set in April 1980—and is now three times what it was just four years ago. What’s going on? This is a record that virtually none of the world’s oil experts predicted, particularly at a time when the world economy is slumping and the demand for gasoline is now dropping in the United States. Some of the blame may go to speculation and the decline of the dollar. But the roots of the problem run deeper.  Worlcrude oil production has actually fallen from 73.8 million barrels per day in 2005 to 73.2 million barrels per day in the first ten months of 2007, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This makes 2005 the peak year for world oil production so far, though it is too early to know if this will turn out to be the all-time high.  In 2007, crude oil production declined in some of the world’s largest oil-producing countries— including Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela—due to a combination of geological and political factors.  The fact that the world is having a hard time expanding oil supply fast enough to keep up with even modest demand growth is beginning to be accepted in some corners of the oil industry. The CEO of Royal Dutch Shell and the U.S. industry-dominated National Petroleum Council have both stated that supply constraints are likely to put continued pressure on world oil markets in the years ahead. 

Interesting3: Beijing is seeking weather forecasters from home and abroad to provide hourly bulletins in three languages for every event of the Olympics in August, China‘s top meteorological official said on Thursday.  More than 70 of the country’s best provincial weather forecasters would come to Beijing to help out, said Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration.  "The whole nation’s strength will be mustered," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to parliament currently meeting in the capital.  Weather experts from previous Olympic hosts such as the United States and Australia would also come in August to share their expertise and technology, Zheng said.  "There will be forecasters at every venue to issue detailed weather services in Chinese, English and French, to be updated every hour," said Zheng, who has a PhD from the University of Toronto.  He said weather was the most challenging factor in Beijing‘s preparations for the Games.  "The pressure is very high," Xinhua news agency quoted Zheng as saying.  But the simmering heat and humidity that usually plague Beijing in the summer should have relented during the 16-day Games and history was on Beijing‘s side when it came to guaranteeing a dry opening ceremony on August 8, he said.