August 7-8 2008

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

Lihue, Kauai – 86
Honolulu, Oahu – 86
Kaneohe, Oahu – 84
Kahului, Maui – 89
Hilo, Hawaii – 83
Kailua-kona – 85

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the taller mountains…at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon:

Honolulu, Oahu – 86F  
Hilo, Hawaii – 76 

Haleakala Crater- 55 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 45 (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

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:

2.30 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.64 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.10 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
1.56 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.54 Glenwood, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1030 millibar high pressure system located to the north-northeast of Hawaii. Our local winds be moderately strong…although stronger and gusty in the channels and those windiest places around the state through 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. 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


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3149/2697910190_5db98afb87.jpg?v=0
   The steep cliffs on the north shore of Molokai
   Photo Credit: flickr.com

Our local trade winds will remain somewhat stronger than normal for the time being…then relax in strength some later this weekend into next week.  The NWS forecast office in Honolulu has a small craft wind advisory active in those windiest areas around the state, stretching from the Kaiwi channel separating Oahu and Molokai…down across Maui to the Big Island in select coastal and channel waters. Our local trade winds will reach their peak in strength today into Saturday, relaxing some during the second half of the weekend. The computer forecast models show no end to the breezy trade winds, continuing right on into next week.

There will be showers falling along the windward sides, mostly at night, and locally along the leeward slopes…mostly commonly in Kona. As the trade winds remain gusty through Saturday, there will continue to be those occasional passing showers along the windward sides of the islands at times. The weather is expected to turn somewhat drier again as we move into the upcoming weekend…as the trade winds slip back a little in strength then. The leeward sides should be quite dry, although there will be a few afternoon showers falling locally.

The central Pacific has its first tropical storm of the 2008 hurricane season, in the form of Kika…located to the south-southeast of the Big Island. Here’s a looping satellite picture of that tropical cyclone, down to the more or less south of the Big Island. Here’s a storm tracking map to show this storm in relation to the Hawaiian Islands – please notice that we have a strengthening tropical storm in the eastern Pacific as well, called Hernan. Despite all this tropical activity, none of this will have any influence on our local weather here in the Hawaiian Islands. We may see some increase in showers later next week, as whatever is left of, what will then be retired tropical cyclone Hernan…gets carried our way on the trade winds.

It’s early Thursday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative.  Thursday was a generally sunny day, at least in most areas. The trade winds got frisky as expected this afternoon, with locally blustery conditions here and there. While I was near the beach in Kihei during lunch, there was sand blowing off the beaches, in drifts, getting carried across South Kihei Road…just like it did on Wednesday. The ocean just offshore from Kihei was filled with small white caps, chalking-up the surface significantly. Our local winds remain somewhat stronger than normal going into Friday, with not all that many showers…although looking at this satellite image, it appears that the windward sides will find perhaps some increase in moisture during the overnight hours. Meanwhile, tropical storm Kika will remain well south of the Hawaiian Islands, as it continues passing to the south of Hawaii. There won’t be any influence of this first tropical storm on us, other than reminding ourselves that storms can come relatively close during our hurricane season…how close is always the big question this time of year! There will be more storms forming in the eastern Pacific, moving over into our central Pacific at times during the next month or more. I’ll be back very early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Crystal Blue Persuasion…Tommy James and the Shondells

Interesting: The phenomenon that causes a diamond to sparkle could be used to find large bodies of water on rocky, Earth-like planets, says Darren M. Williams, lead author of a paper in Icarus that describes the process. The trick, he says, is to look for planets when they are in crescent phase, ideally in orbits that lie at an edge-on angle to Earth. In that position, the glare bouncing off the water would make the planet seem unusually bright.  "Crescent phase is where the starlight would be glancing off the edge of the planet toward our telescopes," says Williams, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Penn State Erie. "That would be when the light is coming at the surface at a very steep angle, and the spectacular reflection would be the strongest and most intense."

Williams ran simulations of idealized, cloud-free planets with three types of surfaces: unfrozen land, snow and ice, and water. His goal was to see to what extent the presence of water would contribute to the light coming from a planet in another solar system. He found that for slightly tilted systems the reflection from water would be the most powerful signal, particularly if the planet were observed in crescent phase. When a star appears directly over a body of water, almost all the light is absorbed. But from a glancing angle, most of the light is reflected. The shape of the light curve would help distinguish Earth-like planets with water from those without.

Interesting2:



Americans are drinking less alcohol, with middle-aged people consuming about one-third less than 50 years ago, researchers report. Overall, Americans are drinking less beer, but more wine, while consumption of hard liquor has remained fairly constant. Also, more people say they don’t drink, and those born later in the 20th century are more moderate drinkers than their parents. "It looks like moderate drinking has been increasing, heavy drinking is down a little bit, and total alcohol consumption is down a little bit," said lead researcher Dr. R. Curtis Ellison, a professor of medicine and public health at Boston University School of Medicine. "It is encouraging news that more people are drinking moderately, and the average intake is coming down rather than shooting up," he said. For the study, Ellison’s team collected data on 8,000 people who took part in the Framingham Heart Study.

People in the initial arm of the study were born before 1900 up until 1959. Those from the initial enrollment group as well as their children were interviewed every four years from 1948 to 2003 about their alcohol consumption. Ellison explained that the Framingham study consists primarily of white, middle-class individuals from the Massachusetts town of the same name. "It generally tends to reflect trends within the country among middle-class, white Americans," he said. The researchers found that, overall, people are drinking less. "People drank about a third more back in the ’50s and ’60s than they did in the ’70s up to 2004," Ellison said. There’s been a gradual decrease in the average amount of alcohol people drink. For instance, alcohol consumption among men has gone from about two-and-a-half drinks a day to one-and-a-half drinks a day, Ellison said. "At the same time, there’s been a decrease in beer and an increase in wine consumption among people. But the average intake has decreased," he said.

Interesting3:



When the Opening Ceremonies launch the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing on Friday, city officials will no doubt hope their efforts pay off to reduce the city's usual pall of smog and bring blue skies to the games. But their policies may matter little in the face of the region's weather — the main influence on Beijing's pollution levels, according to one scientist. Air pollution in Beijing, and much of the rest of China, has skyrocketed in recent decades, due in large part to a booming economy and rapid industrialization, as well as the nation's huge population, who desire the same amenities as westerners. About 1,000 cars are added to the roads of Beijing alone each year, while China as a whole is commissioning one new coal-burning power plant each week and construction is rampant. After winning the bid in 2001 for this year's Summer Olympics, Beijing pledged to bring down pollution levels in time for the Opening Ceremonies, which will be held on Friday. Since then, the country has been investing in cleaner technologies and improving public transportation and has succeeded in decreasing the levels of some pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, generated by burning coal. But the scale of the problem has forced officials to also institute more short-term policies to bring down levels of particulate matter (PM), tiny particles suspended in the air and created by factories, coal burning for heat and combustion in vehicles. Beginning on July 20, Beijing officials instituted a ban that took 50 percent of Beijing's cars off the roads and began shutting down hundreds of factories in and around the city.