Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs

Beautiful Hawaiian sunset
Photo Credit: flickr.com

An exceptionally large high pressure system to the north of the islands, will keep moderately strong trade winds blowing across our tropical latitudes of the north central Pacific Ocean. Brisk trade winds will remain in place through the rest of this week, although may veer to the southeast as a cold front approaches from the NW later this weekend. Wind speeds will range between 5-20 mph in those areas that are partially blocked from the direct trade wind flow…gusting up to 30+ mph in those most exposed places. 
 
The windward sides of the islands, after a long dry spell, will see some increase in showers…with the leeward beaches remaining dry for the most part. These showers carried in our direction by the fresh trade winds, won’t be very generous for the time being. As we move into the second half of the upcoming weekend, then into Monday, we may see a more substantial increase in showers along the windward sides, and perhaps over and around the mountains then too. The leeward beaches will escape these showers for the most part.

It’s Thursday evening as I begin updating last paragraph of today’s narrative.  As noted above, our weather will be just fine for the time being, with the welcome addition of a few windward biased showers arriving now. The leeward beaches will be great for beaching, with warm daytime temperatures. Looking a bit further ahead, we see an upper trough of low pressure locating itself near the islands, actually just to the south of Hawaii, later this weekend into early next week. Depending upon just exactly where it takes up residence, will help to determine the local influences for us. The way it looks at the moment, our winds may veer to the southeast, as a cold front approaches from the northwest. If this were to occur, the models show moisture from the deeper tropics being drawn up over the state. This would likely manifest as an increase in trade wind showers. If the winds get lighter then, as the islands split and block the southeast winds, we could see generous afternoon showers over and around the mountains then too. At any rate, there does appear to be some sort of shift that will happen in our precipitation characteristics at that point. ~~~ Thursday became more cloudy than expected, much of which got carried overhead on the jet stream level winds aloft. As you can see from this looping satellite image, these cirrus clouds seem to be moving away towards the north and northeast. There is another potential source area, to the west and northwest, which could eventually bring more of these high level icy clouds into our neighborhood. Meanwhile, at the lower levels of the atmosphere, clouds being carried in our direction on the trade winds, will be able to deposit some showers along our north and east facing winward coasts and slopes at times. ~~~ I’ll be back very early Friday morning (how did Friday get here so quickly!?) with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn. 

The all-time Australian heat wave record isn’t under threat however. During the summer of 1923 -1924, Marble Bar in northwestern Australia experienced 160 consecutive days of temperatures at or above 100F. Heat stress across Adelaide has taken hold of many of the city’s residents. Over 50 people, mostly elderly, have been taken to hospital for heat-related stress. The city’s trams and trains have been ordered to slow their speeds with transport officials fearing track buckling in the extreme heat.

Interesting2:  Winter storms and snow notwithstanding, this winter was still warmer than average worldwide, the government reported Thursday. The global temperature for meteorological winter — December, January and February — averaged 54.38 degrees Fahrenheit, 0.58 degrees warmer than normal for the last century, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported. This is the Earth’s 23rd consecutive warmer-than-average winter. Temperatures have been rising over recent years, raising concerns about the effects of global warming, generally attributed to human-induced impacts on the atmosphere. While it was warmer than normal, the just completed winter was the coolest since 2000-2001, which climate experts attributed to the presence of moderate-to-strong La Nina, or cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, which can affect conditions around the world.  For the USA, this winter’s average temperature was 33.2 degrees, 0.2 degrees above the 20th century average.  NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center said winter temperatures were warmer than average from Texas to the Southeast and along the Eastern Seaboard, while cooler-than-average temperatures stretched from much of the upper Midwest to the West Coast.