Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / October 8-9, 2008

October 8-9 2008

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

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

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Wednesday afternoon:

Port Allen, Kauai – 86F  
Hilo, Hawaii – 78

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 Wednesday afternoon:

0.46 Mount Waialeale Kauai
0.18 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.07 Hana airport, Maui
0.07 Hilo airport, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing low pressure systems to the north and NW of Hawaii moving northward. This will allow the high pressure ridge, to our north, to migrate northward as well. This in turn will allow gradually increasing trade wind speeds both Thursday and Friday.

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

  Red hot lava flowing into the ocean…on the Big Island
Photo Credit: flickr.com

 

Our local winds will be the lightest of the week Wednesday, generally from the east-southeast, with trades returning Thursday. A high pressure ridge has been pushed southward towards us, turning our winds to the east and southeast. These lighter winds will allow daytime sea breezes to develop, especially during the afternoon hours. Our regular trade winds will fill back in on Thursday into the upcoming weekend. The models are sketchy at this point, but the light to moderately strong trade winds could give way to another bout of lighter east-southeast winds early next week.

The overlying atmosphere is rather dry and stable Wednesday evening, with generally just a few light upcountry showers. There will be some high clouds over some parts of the state. The bias for showers will shift back over to the windward sides Thursday into Friday, at which point we may see some added showers arriving along our windward sides. We’ll find generally nice weather as we move into the weekend time frame. The high clouds will thin, but could return at times over the next couple of days.

Tropical cyclone Norbert has strengthened into a dangerous category 4 major hurricane in the eastern Pacific. Norbert will be taking aim on the southern part of the Baja Peninsula, along the west coast, bringing hurricane force winds to that area early this weekend. Here’s a tracking map showing this tropical system in the eastern Pacific, as well as a satellite image of Norbert. All ships in the area should be giving a wide berth to this major hurricane, while residents of central and southern Baja should be paying very close attention, and battening down the hatches soon!

It’s Wednesday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrative from Hawaii.  The winds got lighter as expected, with the strongest wind gust as of early Wednesday evening, 24 mph at Maalaea Bay, Maui. Most areas were experiencing much lighter winds in general. As expected, the winds will become increasingly strong Thursday into Friday…into the weekend. As these trade winds return, we may see some modest increase in showers Thursday evening into the Friday time frame. These showers will back-off some as we cruise into the upcoming weekend. Early next week continues to be the wild card, although it appears that the winds will back-off again, putting us into a convective weather pattern, with light winds and afternoon upcountry clouds with a few showers…similar to today. ~~~ Despite all the clouds that gathered over and around the mountains this afternoon into the early evening hours, there were few if any showers reported. These clouds, other than whatever high clouds that remain in our area, should disappear shortly after sunset. I’ll be back early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a good Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

Soldiers, weapons, food and fuel are important but the U.S. Army absolutely cannot operate for long without water, a top Pentagon official said. This simple fact is just as true for domestic bases as it is in "austere" forward installations in Iraq, said Tad Davis, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health. "Somebody recently said water’s the new oil and there’s a lot to be said for that," Davis said at the Reuters Global Environment Summit. "You can get out there … and deploy to an area for conducting operations, but if water’s not there for drinking purposes and for cooking, showering, laundry, things like that, then you’re not going to be able to sustain the force."

In Iraq, 80 percent of cargo in Army convoys headed into forward areas over the last several years consisted of fuel and water. To make the convoys shorter — and therefore less of a target — the Army worked on making bases more fuel-efficient and looked for ways to reuse or purify existing water supplies, Davis said. Ultimately, they set up six water bottling facilities in Iraq to serve U.S. Army needs. In the United States, the dimensions of the problem are more complex, because the Army is in the midst of a construction boom to accommodate an additional 75,000 soldiers over the next three or four years, Davis said.

Interesting2:

U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is making few friends among U.N. climate experts with her view that natural swings, along with human activities, may explain global warming. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Climate Panel, says that evidence is mounting that human activities are the main cause of warming. The panel reported last year that it was at least 90 percent certain that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, were heating the planet. He predicted in a telephone interview that Palin’s influence would be limited on climate change if Republican John McCain won the presidency. “In the ultimate analysis I don’t think the vice president of the United States really matters in these subjects.

I wouldn’t really worry too much about her,” he said.  (”even so, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, with Pachauri’s panel. Or did Gore only become a guru for greens after he left office?)  Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, also said when asked about Palin’s views that: “We have the science. The debate over the science is over.” Many delegates at an International Union for Conservation of Nature congress I am attending in Barcelona also say they worry that Palin’s views make it sound as if the science of global warming is far less certain than it is. So, at least from interviews I have been doing for a Reuters News environment summit, Palin is out in the cold.

Interesting3:

A team of scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has found a way to genetically enhance the scent of flowers and implant a scent in those that don’t have one. Smell plays an important role in our lives: It influences the way in which we choose fruit and vegetables, perfume, and even a partner. And yet, smell is not just what we smell with our noses, it’s also what we taste, explains Prof. Alexander Vainstein, who is heading the team at the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. "Aroma is of major importance for defining the taste of food." Scent in flowers and plants is used to attract pollinating insects like bees and beetles that pass on the pollen and help in the reproduction and creation of fruit.

The intensity of the scent that the flower emanates is influenced by the time of day, depending on weather, age of the flower and the species. In research that was published recently in the Plant Biotechnology Journal, Prof. Vainstein and his research assistant Michal Moyal Ben-Tzvi succeeded, together with other researchers, to find a way of enhancing the scent of a flower by ten-fold and cause it to emit a scent during day and night – irrespective of the natural rhythm of scent production. The development, which has been patented by Yissum, the HebrewUniversity‘s technology transfer company, is intended to be applied to other agricultural produce. Utilizing natural components will increase and change not only the smell of fruit and vegetables, but also influence the commercial appeal of a wide array of produce.

Interesting4: Scientists filming in one of the world’s deepest ocean trenches have found groups of highly sociable snailfish swarming over their bait, nearly five miles (7700 metres) beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. This is the first time cameras have been sent to this depth. ‘We got some absolutely amazing footage from 7700 metres. More fish than we or anyone in the world would ever have thought possible at these depths,’ says project leader Dr Alan Jamieson of the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab, on board the Japanese research ship the Hakuho-Maru. ‘It’s incredible. These videos vastly exceed all our expectations from this research. We thought the deepest fishes would be motionless, solitary, fragile individuals eking out an existence in a food-sparse environment,’ says Professor Monty Priede, director of Oceanlab. ‘But these fish aren’t loners.

The images show groups that are sociable and active – possibly even families – feeding on little shrimp, yet living in one of the most extreme environments on Earth.’ ‘All we’ve seen before of life at this depth have been shrivelled specimens in museums. Now we have an impression of how they move and what they do. Having seen them moving so fast, snailfish seems a complete misnomer,’ he added. Although some species of snailfish live in shallow water and even rock pools, the hadal snailfish are found exclusively below 6000 metres. Here they have to contend with total darkness, near freezing temperatures and immense water pressure – at this depth the pressure is 8,000 tonnes per square metre, equivalent to that of 1600 elephants standing on the roof of a Mini car. They feed on the thousands of tiny shrimp-like creatures that scavenge the carcasses of dead fish and detritus reaching the ocean floor.

Interesting5: Health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society have released a report that lists 12 pathogens that could spread into new regions as a result of climate change, with potential impacts to both human and wildlife health and global economies. Called The Deadly Dozen: Wildlife Diseases in the Age of Climate Change, the new report provides examples of diseases that could spread as a result of changes in temperatures and precipitation levels.