Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / November 26-27, 2008

November 26-27 2008

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

Lihue, Kauai – 79
Honolulu, Oahu – 84
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Kahului, Maui – 84
Hilo, Hawaii – 75
Kailua-kona – 82

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

Barking Sands, Kauai – 82F
Hilo, Hawaii – 72F

Haleakala Crater    – 50  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 36  (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:

0.68 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.08 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.03 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.33 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.43 Glenwood, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing showing a surface high pressure system northeast of Oahu, which will be moving rapidly northeast tonight. A cold front will reach Kauai Friday, stall and weaken over the central islands early Saturday. Moderate to strong northeast winds will briefly follow the front. The front dissipates over the central islands by Sunday.

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

      

 
  Good weather on Thanksgiving Day!
Photo Credit: Flikr.com

 

The gusty trade winds will give way to lighter winds tomorrow, becoming southeast to southwest by nightfall on Thanksgiving. These gusty winds continue to be strong enough now, that a small craft wind advisory flag remains active across the area from the islands around Maui County, down to the Big Island. Strong winds over the summits of Maui and the Big Island will be on the increase…thus the wind advisory there now too. The computer models suggest that lighter southeast to southwest winds will take the place of the trades later on Thanksgiving, ahead of a cold front scheduled to arrive on Kauai Friday night. Our winds will turn cooler from the north and northeast briefly following the frontal passage, at least near Kauai and probably Oahu. Those chilly breezes will back around to the south Kona direction Sunday into Monday, ahead of a second cold front that will stall before arriving on Kauai.

Other than a few windward showers, our weather will remain dry for the most part through Thanksgiving…with a few showers expected Friday. The gusty trade winds will carry clouds to the windward sides Wednesday night, but the air mass is quite dry…which will limit the amount of showers. As the cold front arrives Friday night over Kauai, we’ll find an increase in clouds and showers. The computer models continue to suggest that the front will stall somewhere between Kauai and Oahu. A brief period of cool weather will return after the cold front on those islands…although other than some small drop precipitation across the north facing slopes, conditions will remain generally dry elsewhere. The following south breezes may bring a few showers to the leeward sides on Monday into Tuesday.

It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last l paragraph. The trade winds remained locally quite strong Wednesday, with the strongest gust at 4pm noted at South Point on the Big Island…topping out at 42 mph. There were a couple of 30+ mph gusts elsewhere, with the 37 mph gust at Kahului, Maui, the second strongest around the state. These trade winds will remain in force through the first part of Thanksgiving Day, but then begin to recede later in the day, becoming lighter from the southeast. The approaching cold front is discussed in some detail in the paragraphs above, but the bottom line is that it won’t bring heavy rain, and be restricted to Kauai and Oahu. A second cold front will approach early next week, but it won’t even reach Kauai, according to the models now. ~~~ Thanksgiving Day here in the islands should exhibit nice conditions, just the way we like it. I’m about ready to take the drive upcountry to Kula, where I’ll remain until later tomorrow, when I head over to Haiku, for a big dinner with friends there. I’ll be back here early Thursday morning with another new narrative, and more about the dinner, which I’ll be attending on the windward side of east Maui. I hope you have a great Wednesday night, leading into a great Thanksgiving! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Special Note: It’s not just families that are getting together this Thanksgiving week. The three brightest objects in the night sky — Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon — will crowd around each other for an unusual group shot.

 

Starting Thanksgiving evening, Jupiter and Venus will begin moving closer so that by Sunday and Monday, they will appear 2 degrees apart, which is about a finger width held out at arm’s length, said Alan MacRobert, senior editor at Sky and Telescope magazine. Then on Monday night, they will be joined by a crescent moon right next to them, he said.

 

Look in the southwestern sky around twilight — no telescope or binoculars needed. The show will even be visible in cities if it’s a clear night.

 

"It’ll be a head-turner," MacRobert said. "This certainly is an unusual coincidence for the crescent moon to be right there in the days when they are going to be closest together."

 

The moon is the brightest, closest and smallest of the three and is 252,000 miles away. Venus, the second brightest, closest and smallest, is 94 million miles away. And big Jupiter is 540 million miles away.

 

The three celestial objects come together from time to time, but often they are too close to the sun or unite at a time when they aren’t so visible. The next time the three will be as close and visible as this week will be Nov. 18, 2052, according to Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.

But if you are willing to settle for two out of three — Venus and the crescent moon only — it will happen again on New Year’s Eve, MacRobert said.

Interesting:

Despite plummeting gas prices and unusual last-minute holiday deals on airplane tickets, more people are expected to stick close to home this Thanksgiving. In fact, the Automobile Association of America says the 41 million Americans expected to take trips at least 50 miles for Thanksgiving is about 600,000 less than traveled last Thanksgiving. The reason, as a surly economist might say? It’s the economy, stupid. "The economy is in such bad shape. They’re still really hesitant to take that trip," said Beth Mosher, spokeswoman for AAA Chicago. In comparison, over the July 4 weekend when gas prices were far higher than the same weekend the previous year, the number of travelers dropped just 2.3 percent, she said. At that time, the economic news wasn’t as dire as it is now.

Interesting2: 

Online shopping is expected to drop for the first time ever this holiday season in a new indication of just how much the average US consumer is cutting back on spending. The report by web tracking firm Comscore said that online holiday shopping had already dropped 4 per cent in November compared to last year, to 8.51 billion dollars. For the entire season the company predicted that the online shopping total would remain essentially flat at 29.2 billion dollars. That compares to last year's growth of holiday sales by 19 per cent. The study also focused attention on how badly the economy has deteriorated in recent months. Though holiday spending will be stagnant, overall online spending from January to October was 102.1 billion dollars - a rise of 9 per cent over the same period last year. "With consumer confidence low and disposable income tight, the first weeks of November have been very disappointing, with online spending declining versus a year ago," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a press release. "It's likely that some budget-conscious consumers are planning to wait to buy until later in the season to take advantage of retailers' even more aggressive discounting." But Fulgoni warned that any worsening of the economic crisis would drive sales down even further. "We have our fingers crossed that the stock market will not go through another 2,000-point meltdown and that the decline in gas prices will build up some cumulative buying power," Fulgoni said. "However, if there is any more significant bad news just over the horizon, all bets are off. Interesting3:

Ever wonder how hundreds of ants are able to go up and down a narrow twig without bumping into each other? A team of German scientists want to find out how ants avoid collisions so that they can apply the same principles to cars on the motorways.  The scientists built an ingenious super "ant farm" complete with roads and bridges and a veritable city of ants. Then they observed the traffic patterns of the ants and fed their findings in to a computer.  The Dresden Institute of Technology collective intelligence expert Dirk Helbing and his team set up an ant highway with two routes of different widths from the nest to some sugar syrup, according to their findings, published in New Scientist.  Unsurprisingly, the narrower route soon became congested.

But to the amazement of the scientists, they found that just before the shortest route became completely clogged, outgoing ants diverted incoming ants to another route and traffic jams along the sugar syrup meal corridor never formed. The German researchers then applied what they learned by studying the insects and created a computer model of more complex networks of routes of varying lengths.  They discovered that ants continued to do the same thing, redirecting incoming ants to less congested corridors and even if the incoming ants were pushed into a longer route, they still managed to get to the food quickly and efficiently. The trick now is to find out how ants pass on these "traffic reports" to each other. The scientists say that when they have unlocked that mystery, the day may not be far off when human drivers travelling in opposite directions could pass congestion information to each other in this same way.