Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs

Lanikai Beach on Oahu
Photo Credit: Flickr.com

This week will start off with light winds, and end up with light winds…with a brief period of trade winds in between. Storms to the north and northwest of Hawaii, will keep a high pressure system pushed into the eastern Pacific, offshore from San Diego, California. A weak ridge extends from this high to over the northern islands, keeping our winds light and variable through Tuesday evening…with quite a lot of haze around. The latest computer forecast guidance suggests that light trade winds will arrive Wednesday, stick around through Thursday. The ridge will get forced down over the islands again Friday into the weekend, with lighter southeast breezes then.
 
Dry weather will start the week, with an increase in windward showers arriving along with the trade winds Wednesday into Thursday. Monday and Tuesday will start off with clear skies, then turn locally cloudy during the afternoon hours. The upcountry areas will see rather thick cloud cover during the afternoons, which will collapse after dark. When the trade winds arrive by mid-week, there will be some sort of an increase in showers arriving along the windward sides. As we get to Friday into the weekend, the bias for showers will shift from the windward sides, back over the mountains during the afternoon hours…as we slip back into a convective weather pattern.

It’s Monday evening as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative.  As noted in the paragraphs above, our dry convective weather pattern, the same one we’ve had for the last couple of weeks, will remain in place as we start this new work week. We could point upwards, towards the ridge of high pressure aloft over the islands, as the cause for this prolonged period of dry weather. This upper ridge will hang around for another couple of days, before being replaced by a trough of low pressure, which may be around through much of the rest of the week. This upper trough will make our overlying atmosphere somewhat more shower prone. This is the primary reasoning behind why we should be seeing an increase in the showers brought in by the surging trade winds starting at mid-week. ~~~ A cold front later in the week, perhaps even a couple of them, will push our trade wind producing high pressure surface ridge down over the islands. This should occur starting Friday into the weekend, which will send us back into a light and variable wind condition, with light southeasterly breezes blowing locally. If the upper trough of low pressure is still around then, we could see a few generous showers falling in the upcountry areas during the afternoons then. ~~~ As you may have noticed, if you follow the weather closely, each new day the computer models seem to have had a new take on what will be happening weatherwise this week. We may very well need to continue fine tuning the weather outlook, although what else is new in the world of weather!? ~~~ Monday was a classic example of well developed convective weather conditions. The day started off just fine, although the daytime heating cooked up lots of clouds. These clouds sometimes restrict themselves to over and around the mountains, but not today! As a matter of fact, clouds spread out rather extensively over all the islands…right down to the beaches in most cases. The only saving grace perhaps, was that these clouds didn’t do much more than wring out a sprinkle or two of rain. These clouds will clear out nicely after dark, making way for yet another clear sky start to the day Tuesday. ~~~ I hope everyone has a good and restful Monday night! I’ll be back very early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. Aloha for now…Glenn. 

Interesting2: Corn is a key element of the U.S. food supply. It is what dairy cows eat to make milk and hens consume to lay eggs. It fattens cattle, hogs and chickens before slaughter. It makes soda sweet. As the building block of ethanol, it is now also a major component of auto fuel.  And that may signal trouble ahead.  Economists are cautioning that the nation’s growing dependence on corn would make for a double jolt in the event of a drought across the Midwest: soaring prices not just for food but also for gasoline.  Analysts now warn that a "corn shock" might not be far off — and it could lead to $5 gas and $3.50 eggs as the effects reverberate across the economy.  "We are replacing price volatility from the Middle East with Midwestern weather price volatility," said Michael Swanson, a Wells Fargo & Co. vice president and agricultural economist.  Such a disaster would occur against a backdrop of soaring prices for basic food items and other commodities that are already stressing the economy. Coffee is up 21% to date, platinum 42% and already high oil an additional 6%.  After a torrid 2007, corn prices have risen an additional 20% this year because of global demand for livestock feed, sweeteners and ethanol. The rush by American farmers to forgo other grains to plant cash-producing corn, along with weather problems, has squeezed wheat supplies, pushing the price of that grain up 21%. Soy has risen 25% this year.