June 16-17 2008


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

Lihue, Kauai – 80
Honolulu, Oahu – 85
Kaneohe, Oahu – 81
Kahului, Maui – 88
Hilo, Hawaii – 84
Kailua-kona – 83

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level at 5 p.m. Monday evening:

Kahului, Maui – 83F  
Lihue, Kauai – 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 Monday afternoon:

1.44  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
1.03 Makaha Stream, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.21 Lanai
0.27 Kahoolawe
0.19 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.43 Kealakekua, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems to the north-northwest and northeast of the islands. Meanwhile, a trough of low pressure to the west and NW of the state will keep light winds in place over Kauai and Oahu…while Maui and the Big Island will continue to see light to moderately strong trade winds. Winds will increase everywhere Wednesday.  

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. 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 weather conditions.

Aloha Paragraphs

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  Honolua Bay, west Maui
Photo Credit: flickr.com

Our winds have dropped off into the lighter realms Monday…veering around to the east-southeast, or even southeast locally for the next 24-36 hours. This veering motion is being caused by an unusual trough of low pressure that has developed to the west and northwest of Kauai. It will take until later Tuesday or Wednesday before we see the return of our classic trade winds, which will take us into the beginning of our summer season…which occurs this weekend.

These lighter winds will have us feeling rather warm and humid during the days, and slightly cooler than normal during the early morning hours. We can consider this to be a modified convective weather pattern, with the usual warm and muggy air that gets brought up on the slightly south of east winds. The next day or two will feel rather muggy, with the chance of a few showers, the most generous of which will be on the island of Kauai.

The relatively close proximity of the trough to the west, will make our atmosphere locally more shower prone. The daytime heating of the islands will get the air rising, and the troughs cold air aloft will allow the cumulus clouds grow more vertically than usual…at least locally. The afternoon hours will likely have the heaviest showers, mostly over the interior sections of the islands. Kauai and Oahu, being closest to the destabilizing influence of the upper trough, with its surface reflection, will see the most generous showers. As the trough moves away later Tuesday into Wednesday, the trade winds will return…with showers shifting back over to the windward sides through the rest of the week.

~~~ This developing light wind episode is yet another perfect example of the unusual nature of this spring season. It makes me wonder what sort of unusual weather occurrences could come our way during the summer months?  The first thing that pops into my mind of course would be in regards to tropical cyclone activity. This years hurricane season is forecast to have less than the normal number of storms in the central Pacific. This is a comforting fact, although that doesn’t ensure that we wouldn’t have some close call, or even a direct impact. We don’t usually start to look for spinning storms in our area until later July or August.

~~~ It’s early Monday evening, here in Kula, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative. The day turned out to be somewhat windier than expected, which in turn limited the vertical growth of our local clouds. Late in the day the interior sections on Oahu were reporting light rainfall, while most areas basked in warm sunshine. There’s a fair amount of cirrus clouds, which are streaking across island skies up high now. As can be seen on this satellite image, there are lots of clouds associated with the trough to our west…which is the source of the cirrus clouds. Monday evening should be a good sunset, with great colors, which could easily start off Tuesday morning, in a colorful way too. Stronger trade winds aren’t far off, and will bring us back into a typical trade wind weather pattern soon. I’ll be back again very early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative. Oh yeah, check out that near full moon tonight, its getting very near its roundest aspect! I hope you have a great Monday night, wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: Japanese car manufacturer Honda has begun the first commercial production of a zero-emission, hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicle. The four-seater, called FCX Clarity, runs on electricity produced by combining hydrogen with oxygen, and emits water vapour. Honda claims the vehicle offers three times better fuel efficiency than a traditional, petrol-powered car. Honda plans to produce 200 of the cars over the next three years. One of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of wider adoption of fuel-cell vehicles is the lack of hydrogen fuelling stations. Critics also point out that hydrogen is costly to produce and the most common way to produce hydrogen is still from fossil fuels. Analysis of the environmental impact of different fuel technologies has shown that the overall carbon dioxide emissions from hydrogen powered cars can be higher than that from petrol or diesel-powered vehicles. The first five customers are all based in southern California because of the proximity of hydrogen fuelling stations, Honda said.

Interesting2: If you are curious about Earth’s periodic mass extinction, events such as the sudden demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, you might consider crashing asteroids and sky-darkening super volcanoes as culprits.  But a new study, published online today (June 15, 2008) in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment over the course of geologic time, that is the primary cause of the world’s periodic mass extinctions during the past 500 million years.  "The expansions and contractions of those environments have pretty profound effects on life on Earth," says Shanan Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of geology and geophysics and the author of the new Nature report.  

In short, according to Peters, changes in ocean environments related to sea level exert a driving influence on rates of extinction, which animals and plants survive or vanish, and generally determine the composition of life in the oceans. Since the advent of life on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, scientists think there may have been as many as 23 mass extinction events, many involving simple forms of life such as single-celled microorganisms. During the past 540 million years, there have been five well-documented mass extinctions, primarily of marine plants and animals, with as many as 75-95 percent of species lost.

For the most part, scientists have been unable to pin down the causes of such dramatic events. In the case of the demise of the dinosaurs, scientists have a smoking gun, an impact crater that suggests dinosaurs were wiped out as the result of a large asteroid crashing into the planet. But the causes of other mass extinction events have been murky, at best.

"Paleontologists have been chipping away at the causes of mass extinctions for almost 60 years," explains Peters, whose work was supported by the National Science Foundation. "Impacts, for the most part, aren’t associated with most extinctions. There have also been studies of volcanism, and some eruptions correspond to extinction, but many do not."

 

Interesting3: Germany’s main radiation laboratory has concluded that mobile phones are safe and pose no cancer risk to users, according to a nearly-10-year-long study obtained Monday by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. The survey by the Federal Radiation Protection Bureau found no evidence whatever that cell phones, cordless phones or cordless base stations situated next to beds caused brain cancer, headaches or disturbed sleep in adults. But the scientists said they would like to study the issue longer to make absolutely sure that young children exposed to such electro-magnetic fields did not develop health problems in old age. The bureau, which employs top radiation scientists, advised parents not to let children keep phones permanently in their clothing until such a risk had been ruled out. Large numbers of Germans fear mobile phones may be lethal after alarming reports about them in the media. More than 50 German research projects since 2002 were analysed for the report. In some cases, genetic activity in human cells was observed to change under the influence of radiation, but this did not alter the overall conclusion that the phones were safe.  German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel was due to unveil the study on Tuesday.