Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / July 30-31, 2008

Aloha Paragraphs



  The newest beaches being made on the Big Island!
Photo Credit: Konaboy

We’re now dropping back into a fairly normal trade wind weather pattern, with off and on showers falling along the windward sides. This classic late July situation should last into the first couple of days of August…with sunshine prevailing over the generally dry leeward coasts. As this satellite image shows, we have an area of showery clouds reaching the windward sides of Maui and the Big Island Wednesday evening. There appears to be a break then, before the next batch of clouds arrives during the night…with embedded showers. The computer models show a trough of low pressure approaching the state over the next few days, whose influence may ratchet-up the shower activity some over the windward sides into the weekend. The one main question is whether there will be enough available moisture around, to feed those showers that the models are indicating. One ample source of moisture, is the leftover showery clouds associated with now retired tropical cyclone Genevieve, which was active in the eastern Pacific well over a week ago…and has been moving westward in our direction on the trade wind flow.

The trade winds, which have been rather strong and gusty during the last week, but will mellow-out quite a bit as we get into the weekend. A long lasting, and extremely large, trade wind producing high pressure system remains anchored far to the north of Hawaii at mid-week.







This weather map shows the extent of this exceptionally broad area. This high pressure cell is weighing-in at 1033 millibars, amply strong to spin-out moderately strong trade winds across our tropical latitudes here in the islands. This high is expected to drift out of its position to our north soon, although keep our local trade winds blowing. As we move into the early part of next week, the models suggest that our local winds will edge upward in strength, with no real end in sight from this vantage point.

It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start updating this last section of today’s narrative. Wednesday’s trade winds remained a bit stronger and gusty than what the models had projected. Late in the day, the strongest wind gusts around included 28 mph at Port Allen, Kauai; 32 mph at Kahuku on Oahu; 35 mph on the island of Lanai; 40 at Maalaea Bay, Maui; and 29 mph at South Point on the Big Island. There will be a slow down in our local trade wind speeds, but it may take until Friday into the weekend before it really starts to be noticeable for most folks. Otherwise, nothing too out of the ordinary is expected in our Hawaiian Island weather picture. The beaches along the leeward sides will be most suitable for framing, I mean beaching, during the morning hours…before the afternoon trade winds add white caps to the ocean surface…like they have the last several days in Kihei and Wailea, Maui. I’ll be back very early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

Beijing’s pollution levels dropped Wednesday to less than half of the previous day’s, the lowest reading since authorities began pulling cars off the road and shutting down factories to address athletes’ concerns about air quality ahead of the Olympic Games. A cooling wind and some rain helped sweep away pollutants and gave Beijingers a respite from the sultry heat and humidity that had cloaked the city for days. The polluted skies over the Olympic host city have been one of the biggest worries for Olympics organizers. The concerns prompted Beijing officials to institute drastic measures earlier this month, included pulling half the city’s 3.3 million vehicles off the roads, halting most construction and closing some factories in the capital and surrounding provinces. The measures are having the desired effect, Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing‘s Environmental Protection Bureau, told The Associated Press in an interview. "The daily data since July 20 shows an improvement in air quality. It reflects the results since we restricted traffic and stopped heavy-polluting factories and construction," he said. "That’s why we say the measures have been effective."

Interesting2:

Arctic sea ice is unlikely to shrink below a 2007 record low this year in a reprieve from the worst predictions of climate change even though new evidence confirms a long-term thaw is under way, experts said. The 2007 record raised worries of a melt that could leave the North Pole ice-free this year, threaten indigenous hunters and thaw ice vital for creatures such as polar bears. It would also help open the Arctic to shipping and oil and gas firms.  "Most likely there will not be a new record minimum ice year in the Arctic this September," said Ola M. Johannessen of the Nansen Environmental and RemoteSensingCenter in west Norway. Arctic sea ice area reaches an annual summer low in September but is about 1 million square kms (386,100 sq mile) bigger than at the same time in late July 2007 at about 6 million sq kms, an area almost as big as Australia. It is still far smaller than the average of recent decades.

"It’s looking rather unlikely that we will beat the record sea ice minimum of 2007," said Mark Serreze, a senior research fellow at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), adding there could still be surprises. "The North Pole is likely safe for at least this year," he said. The NSIDC had suggested in May that it was "quite possible" that the pole could be ice-free this year. "The basic reason that while last summer saw an ideal atmospheric pattern for melting sea ice — essentially a "perfect storm" — the pattern so far this summer has been characterized by somewhat cooler conditions," he said. The 2007 low area of 4.13 million sq kms shattered a 2005 record and was among factors adding pressure on governments to slow a build-up of greenhouse gases from factories, power plants and cars. Governments have agreed to negotiate a new climate treaty by the end of 2009 to succeed the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol.

Interesting3: 

Birds have been moving north in Europe over the past 25 years because of climate change in the vanguard of likely huge shifts in the ranges of plants and animals, scientists said on Wednesday. A study of 42 rare bird species in Britain showed that southern European bird species such as the Dartford warbler, Cirl bunting, little egret or Cetti's warbler had become more common in Britain from 1980-2004. And species usually found in northern Europe, such as the fieldfare, redwing or Slavonian grebe, had become less frequent in Britain. "The species are almost certainly responding to the changing climate," said Brian Huntley of DurhamUniversity in England of a report he wrote with researchers at CambridgeUniversity and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The study tried to filter out other factors that would affect counts of rare birds, including growing public interest that could mean more sightings. Shifts in farming, pollution, expansion of cities and conservation efforts have all affected wildlife. Birds and butterflies are among the first to adapt to climate change because they can fly long distances to seek a cooler habitat. Other creatures and plants can take far longer if their traditional range gets too warm. "It depends on the mobility of the species. Birds and butterflies are two of the groups where there is the best evidence that species are already showing responses to the changing climate," Huntley told Reuters of the study in Royal Society journal Biology Letters.