Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs

  Sailing in the islands…great colors!
Photo Credit: flickr.com

A trough of low pressure to the west and northwest of Kauai, is easing away towards the west Tuesday night. As the trough moves away, the trade winds are spreading back across the entire island chain again. These trade winds are expected to become stronger through the rest of the week, with small craft wind advisories going up in those windiest locations.

As the trough departs, a well established trade wind weather pattern takes over duty through the rest of the week. Showers will be carried towards us on these strengthening winds, falling mostly along the windward sides…although the Kona slopes could see a few afternoon showers too. The rainfall potential however is quite low, with a fairly minimum amount of showers in the forecast.

~~~ It’s early Tuesday evening, here in Kula, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph of today’s narrative. As the trough moves away now, we’ll see a stronger area of trade winds moving in behind it…in its wake. Besides the gusty nature of those trade winds, our weather here in the islands should be just fine, as we move towards the summer solstice this weekend. By the way, the official start of summer will be this Friday, the 20th at 2pm HST. Don’t forget to check out that soon to be full moon, which will be lighting up our night skies brilliantly over the next couple of nights! The point at which the moon will be fullest will occur Wednesday evening at 731pm, at least here in Hawaii. I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: As the full moon rises this Wednesday evening, June 18, many people will be fooled into thinking it’s unusually large. The moon illusion, as it’s known, is a trick in our minds that makes the moon seem bigger when it’s near the horizon. The effect is most pronounced at full moon. Many people swear it’s real, suggesting that perhaps Earth’s atmosphere magnifies the moon. But it really is all in our minds. The moon is not bigger at the horizon than when overhead. The illusion will be particularly noticeable at this "solstice moon," coming just two days before summer starts in the Northern Hemisphere. The reason, according to NASA, lies in lunar mechanics: The sun and full moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week’s high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging moon and a strong, long-lasting version of the illusion.

Interesting2: For most folks, a nice hug and some sympathy can help a bit after we get pushed around. Turns out, chimpanzees use hugs and kisses the same way. And it works. Researchers studying people’s closest genetic relatives found that stress was reduced in chimps that were victims of aggression if a third chimp stepped in to offer consolation. "Consolation usually took the form of a kiss or embrace,” said Dr. Orlaith N. Fraser of the Research Center in Evolutionary Anthropology and Paleoecology at Liverpool John Moores University in England.

"This is particularly interesting,” she said, because this behavior is rarely seen other than after a conflict.  "If a kiss was used, the consoler would press his or her open mouth against the recipient’s body, usually on the top of the head or their back. An embrace consisted of the consoler wrapping one or both arms around the recipient.”  The result was a reduction of stress behavior such as scratching or self-grooming by the victim of aggression, Fraser and colleagues report in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Frans de Waal of the YerkesPrimateCenter at EmoryUniversity in Atlanta said the study is important because it shows the relationship between consolation and stress reduction. Previous researchers have claimed that consolation had no effect on stress, said de Waal, who was not part of Fraser’s research team.  "This study removes doubt that consolation really does what the term suggests: provide relief to distressed parties after conflict. The evidence is compelling and makes it likely that consolation behavior is an expression of empathy,” de Waal said.

Interesting3: Toyota is struggling to keep up with booming demand for its hybrid vehicles because it can’t make enough of the batteries that are key parts in the hit "green” cars, a senior executive said Monday. The crunch is likely to remain the rest of the year, as battery production can’t be boosted until next year, said Toyota Motor Corp. Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada, who oversees production at Japan‘s top automaker. "Hybrids are selling so well we are doing all we can to increase production,” he told The Associated Press. "We need new lines.”  Battery production is critical in determining how many hybrid vehicles Toyota can produce, Uchiyamada said at the company’s Tokyo office.  Hybrids, including Toyota‘s top-selling Prius, offer better mileage than comparable gas-only cars by switching to an electric motor whenever possible. Toyota leads the world’s automakers in hybrids sold at about 1.5 million vehicles since the first mass-produced hybrid Prius came out about a decade ago. The company now offers other models in a hybrid version. Prius and other hybrids are soaring in popularity around the world amid surging gasoline prices, and other automakers are also rushing to produce hybrids. Hybrids also boast a green image in reducing emissions linked to global warming.