April 24-25 2008

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday: 

Lihue, Kauai – 82
Honolulu, Oahu – 84
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Kahului, Maui – 83
Hilo, Hawaii – 83
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii – 82

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon:

Honolulu, Oahu – 82F
Hilo, Hawaii – 77   

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Thursday afternoon: 

0.03 MOLOAA DAIRY, KAUAI
0.01 WAIANAE VALLEY, OAHU
0.00 MOLOKAI
0.00 LANAI
0.00 KAHOOLAWE
0.02 PUKALANI, MAUI
0.13 WAIAKEA UKA, BIG ISLAND

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1028 millibar high pressure system located far to the ENE of the islands Friday….with its ridge just north of Kauai. Our winds will remain light…gradually becoming trade winds later Saturday.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean…out from the islands. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image. 

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon cloud conditions.

Aloha Paragraphs


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Black sand beach near Hana, Maui
Photo credit: flickr.com

The light wind pattern will remain in place through Friday, with strengthening trade winds on tap for the weekend. We see storminess in the middle latitudes pushing a high pressure ridge down close to the islands Thursday evening. When a high pressure ridge gets this close, the trade winds retreat to the area south of Hawaii. Looking at this latest weather map, we see the isobars (lines of equal air pressure) widely spaced around the Aloha state…and coming up from the southeast direction. This has made for an increasingly hazy environment for many areas from the Big Island up through Maui. Oahu and Kauai have been immune to this point, but they will see the haze arriving Friday. Light winds here in the tropics, will make our overlying atmosphere feel very warm and muggy during the days. The returning trade winds this weekend will ventilate the haze, and make our heat feel more bearable.

A weak cold front has pushed into the area near Kauai, although the rest of the state remains quite dry. The light winds have prompted a convective weather pattern, with days beginning generally clear, and slightly cooler than normal for this time of year. Daytime heating, with the lack of cloudiness during the morning hours, will get air currents rising. The moisture being carried upwards in these thermals will cool quickly into cumulus clouds during the late morning hours. These convective clouds will gather most effectively over and around the mountains, and by afternoon, the mountains will be covered up in most areas…although spreading over the coasts locally. These clouds will drop some showers, although not in any widespread way…perhaps most generously near Kauai, the island closest to the frontal cloud band. The upcountry areas will find the most generous showers falling. Skies will clear again after dark, with the process repeating itself through Friday into early Saturday. As the trade winds return later Saturday, the emphasis for showers will shift back over to the windward sides. Looking into next week, this windward bias for showers will continue, with favorably inclined weather prospects for the leeward sides of the islands.

It’s Thursday evening as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative. The light winds Thursday, with the addition of haze locally, gave island skies a milky look. As you can see by looking at this looping satellite image, the southern part of the state, and especially the Big Island, had to deal with high clouds streaming up from the deeper tropics on the high level jet stream level winds. It was so hazy here on Maui, that it was very difficult to see the Haleakala Crater, or even the West Maui Mountains, from the central valley! This haze will stick with us through Friday, and only begin to disperse as we move into the weekend. Where the sunshine was plentiful, the atmosphere felt very warm and humid today as well. ~~~ As you may know I had trouble with my website editor again this morning. My webmaster informed me that I needed to clear my cache, which eliminated the problem. Now I have to go home to my home computer, and hope that that solves the problem there. I trust that it will, and that early Friday morning I’ll be able to do my normal work, without any problems. Please forgive any inconvenience this may have caused. If I have the luck I need, Friday’s new narrative will come out on time as expected. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: Tyrannosaurus rex just got a firm grip on the animal kingdom’s family tree, right next to chickens and ostriches. New analyses of soft tissue from a T.rex leg bone re-confirm that birds are dinosaurs’ closest living relatives. "We determined that T. rex, in fact, grouped with birds – ostrich and chicken – better than any other organism that we studied," said researcher John Asara of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. "We also show that it groups better with birds than [with] modern reptiles, such as alligators and green anole lizards." Scientists long suspected non-avian dinosaurs were most closely related to modern-day birds.

This idea initially rested largely on similarities between the outward appearances of bird and dinosaur skeletons. Later, further evidence on the close evolutionary relationships among birds and non-avian dinosaurs accumulated. The latest evidence comes from an ancient femur bone unearthed in 2003 by Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies in the Hell Creek Formation, a fossil-packed area that spans Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota. It seems some 68 million years ago, a teenage T. rex died and left behind a drumstick-shaped femur bone that today still contains intact soft tissue and the oldest preserved proteins discovered to date.

Interesting2: Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at StanfordUniversity estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age. "This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species’ history," Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence, said in a statement. "Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA." Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Interesting3: Elevated levels of sulfur dioxide pouring from Kilauea volcano Wednesday forced the evacuation of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for the second time this month. About 2,000 people were forced to leave the park when a lack of wind kept the noxious gas from Halemaumau Crater lingering over the BigIsland volcano, park spokeswoman Mardie Lane said. "Right now we have little to no wind," Lane said. The plume from the volcano’s main crater was lingering over the area rather than getting blown away by trade winds the way it had been earlier in the week. "When you step outside, definitely your eyes tear, you have that feeling that you’d like to cough or clear your throat," Lane said.  A rare two-day park closure earlier this month was caused by a shift in wind direction that prevented the gas from being blown out to sea.  "Our primary concern is for the health and safety of visitors and employees," said Joe Molhoek, the park’s incident commander. "We’re in close contact with the National Weather Service and look forward to favorable winds by week’s end."