The trade winds, despite their easing up a bit, will continue to bring us passing windward biased showers at times. As the trade winds are lighter now, we’ll find some increase in our afternoon convective cumulus cloudiness, with a good chance of showers breaking out locally along the leeward coasts and slopes through Thursday. An area of tropical moisture associated with a former tropical disturbance to the east-southeast of the Big Island, is bringing an increase in showers to that island, Maui and the other islands eventually too…into Thursday. There’s a chance too, that former eastern Pacific tropical cyclone Hernan, will bring a second dose of tropical moisture into the state late this weekend or on Monday.
 
A fairly major storm far north of the islands, at least for the summer season, has weakened our trade wind producing high pressure systems to the north and northeast…with our local trade winds faltering some for the next day or two. They won’t fade away completely, but will get a notch lighter temporarily. At the same time, we’re seeing the arrival of an area of tropical moisture moving through the state. This is causing an increase in showers along the windward sides of the islands. This moisture will cause the afternoon clouds around the mountains, and along the leeward sides, to be more shower prone too. Conditions will dry out Friday into the weekend, just as the trade winds make a re-entry into the Hawaiian Island weather picture. This will occur before the next batch of tropical showers arrives later in the day later Sunday or on Monday. All of these summer showers are helping to push back our drought conditions…which is a very good thing! Please be sure to read the Note paragraph below. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Note: I’m flying to Honolulu late Wednesday afternoon, to attend a Climate Conference at the East West Center, on the campus of the University of Hawaii, Thursday and Friday. Friends on Oahu, who live on the windward side in Kailua, have invited me to spend some time with them Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. I will fly back to Maui late Sunday afternoon. This means that I will not be doing my tv weather show on Thursday, and then again not on Friday…which is a local state holiday. I will not be updating this website as  regularly as usual, although I will have a laptop computer with me, and I will do my best to come back online as often as I can. The daily forecasts, in the upper left hand column on this, and all the other pages, will continue to have the latest Hawaiian weather information available. Glenn

Interesting2: Park benches of the future could be made from computers of the past. Scientists in China have developed a new recycling method that makes a strong construction material out of printed circuit boards (PCBs), which had been thought to be worthless. As more electrical and electronic equipment has become obsolete, the issue of electronic-waste removal has intensified, say Zhenming Xu at ShanghaiJiaoTongUniversity and colleagues. PCBs account for about 3 percent by weight of all electronic waste, Xu says.  Although metals from the circuit boards, such as copper and aluminum, are recycled, landfill disposal has been the primary method for treating their nonmetallic materials, which have been difficult to recycle, the paper says. The new process pulverizes the non-metallic parts of the circuit boards, adds a little resin, then hot presses them into useable plates. Being almost as strong as reinforced concrete, the recycled material makes a good substitute for wood the researchers write in the July 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology. It could be used to make sewer grates, fences and park benches. "There is no doubt that the technique has potential in the industry for recycling nonmetallic materials of PCBs," Xu said.

Interesting3:

The US Navy has agreed to further limit use of low-frequency active sonar to prevent possible harm to whales and other creatures, reports said Wednesday. The new limits were included in a federal court-approved settlement with environmental groups and would ban the use of the low-frequency active sonar in areas in the Pacific Ocean that are known to be whale breeding grounds and key habitat, such as the Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary off Hawaii. The Navy must also limit testing seasonally and in coastal areas. The settlement brings to an end a protracted battle between the sides over the risk to whales and other marine life posed by underwater noise from sonar exercises. Navy officials insist that the sonar exercises are essential for sailors to train to detect ultra-quiet submarines being developed by nations such as Iran and North Korea. Scientists say sonar damages the hearing organs of sea mammals, disrupts their lives and has caused many whale species to beach themselves on shores. Environmentalists urged the Navy to conduct the training in areas spots where whales are not common.

The trade winds, despite their easing up, will continue to bring us passing windward biased showers at times…favoring the cooler night and early morning hours, when the atmosphere is most saturated. As the trade winds get lighter, we’ll likely find some increase in our afternoon convective cumulus cloudiness, with chance of a shower or two along the leeward coasts and slopes through Thursday. An area of tropical moisture associated with a former tropical disturbance to the east-southeast of the Big Island, will bring an increase in showers to that island, Maui and the other islands eventually too…Wednesday into Thursday. There’s a chance too, that former eastern Pacific hurricane Hernan, now downgraded into a tropical storm, may bring an even more productive slug of tropical moisture into the state this weekend. This satellite image shows these moisture areas, both with tropical origins…generally to the east of our islands, moving our way. Here’s a looping radar image, so we can keep track of these incoming shower areas.

It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative.























The most interesting weather elements in the Pacific Ocean, at least those that might have some bearing on our weather here in Hawaii…continue to be tropical systems generally to our east. The first, and closest, is a diminished tropical disturbance to the ESE of the Big Island. Looking at satellite pictures, we find that all the recent thunderstorms have faded, leaving only a low level swirl of clouds as a marker for this weak tropical vortex. Nonetheless, it will prove capable of bringing increased showers into the Big Island and Maui, arriving Wednesday…then spreading up along the other islands through the night into Thursday, most generously along the windward sides, and around the mountains. Then, what was hurricane Hernan in the eastern Pacific, now downgraded to a tropical depression, continues to weaken. The latest track forecast has whatever is left of Hernan, slipping by to the south of the state, as perhaps a tropical disturbance with time. It appears that there is a very good chance of another potentially more substantial dose of showers, with their eastern Pacific tropical origins eventually too. At any rate, Tuesday was a lovely day here in the islands, with an extraordinary amount of warm Hawaiian sunshine beaming down! The trade winds remained somewhat stronger than expected, with a gust of 42 mph at Upolu Point on the Big Island, at 5pm, substantiating that fact! I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Mid-week music video, No Ordinary Love, by…Sade

Note: I will be flying to Honolulu late Wednesday afternoon, to attend a Climate Conference at the East West Center, on the campus of the University of Hawaii, Thursday and Friday. Friends on Oahu, who live on the windward side in Kailua, have invited me to spend some time with them Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. I will fly back to Maui late Sunday afternoon. This means that I























will not be doing my tv weather show on Thursday, and then again not on Friday…which is a local state holiday. I will not be updating this website as  regularly as usual, although will try to find time here and there for some comments along the way. The daily forecasts, in the upper left hand column on this and all other pages, will continue to have the latest Hawaiian weather information however. Glenn

Interesting:

Some large whale species such as the humpback, minke and southern right whale are recovering from a threat of extinction, helped by curbs on hunts since the 1980s, the world’s largest conservation network said on Tuesday. A review of cetaceans — about 80 types of whales, dolphins and porpoises — showed almost a quarter were in danger, mostly small species. Entanglement in fishing gear was the main threat, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said. "For the large whales the picture looks guardedly optimistic," Randall Reeves, chair of the cetacean specialist group of the IUCN, told Reuters of the assessment of marine mammals for the IUCN’s "Red List" of endangered species. "The large whales, the commercially important ones, have for the most part responded well under protection," he said.

The IUCN groups governments, scientists and conservationists. The world imposed a moratorium on all hunts in 1986 after many species were driven towards extinction by decades of exploitation for meat, oil and whalebone. Japan, Norway and Iceland still hunt minke whales, arguing they are plentiful. The humpback whale, which grows up to 50 feet and is found in all the world’s oceans, was moved to "least concern" from "vulnerable" in the new Red List. The southern right whale, found in the southern hemisphere, and the common minke whale, living in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, were shifted down to the "least concern" category from the "lower risk" grouping.

Interesting2:

Heavy rain and thunderstorms which drenched the capital Beijing on Sunday continued into Monday, helping to clear the air and bringing more comfortable conditions for the Olympic competitors. Pollution has been a major worry in the run up to the Olympics. The Beijing Government has gone to extraordinary lengths to remedy the problem by closing down factories and moving as many as 2 million vehicles off the roads. On Saturday the air pollution index was recorded as 94 for the opening day of competition, where below 50 is considered healthy air. An index of over 100 is considered to be harmful to some people.

On Saturday a third of cyclists dropped out of the men’s road race unable to cope with the hot and stuffy conditions. Some relief arrived Sunday in the form of heavy rain and thunderstorms, though some events experienced delays or had to be re-scheduled. Beijing woke to clearer conditions on Monday and lower temperatures, with the haze having cleared. Pollution levels taken on Monday indicated that the pollution index had more than halved, dropping to 38. Scattered showers over the next few days should help to maintain the lower pollution levels. However, it will remain hot with highs near 29 or 30C (84-86F) and with relatively high humidity.

Interesting3:

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter will embark on an Arctic voyage this week to determine the extent of the continental shelf north of Alaska and map the ocean floor, data that could be used for oil and natural gas exploration. U.S. and University of New Hampshire scientists on the Coast Guard Cutter Healy will leave Barrow, Alaska, on Thursday on a three-week journey. They will create a three-dimensional map of the Arctic Ocean floor in a relatively unexplored area known as the Chukchi borderland. The Healy will launch again on September 6, when it will be joined by Canadian scientists aboard an icebreaker, who will help collect data to determine the thickness of sediment in the region. That is one factor a country can use to define its extended continental shelf. With oil at $114 a barrel, after hitting a record $147 in July, and sea ice melting fast, countries like Russia and the United States are looking north for possible energy riches.

"These are places nobody’s gone before, in essence, so this is a first step," said Margaret Hays, the director of the oceanic affairs office at the U.S. State Department. She said the data collected may provide information to the public about future oil and natural gas sources for the United States. This will be the fourth year that the United States has collected data to define the limits of its continental shelf in the Arctic. Russia, which has claimed 460,000 square miles of Arctic waters, last summer planted its flag on the ocean floor of the North Pole. Hays said the Alaskan continental shelf may lie up to 600 nautical miles from the coastline, far beyond the 200-mile (322-km) limit where coastal countries have sovereign rights over natural resources. The research could also shed light on other potential energy resources, like methane frozen in ice under the ocean, that Hays said might one day have some commercial interest. Larry Mayer, a university scientist, said melting sea ice, presumably from global warming, helped last year’s mission. "It was bad for the Arctic, but very very good for mapping."

Interesting4:

Climate change has shifted the boundaries of plant and animal habitats, with some birds in the United States extending their boundaries northward and trees moving farther up mountains, new studies show. Between 2000 and 2005, New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation had thousands of volunteers all over the state observe and report the birds they could identify, creating a Breeding Bird Atlas of the various species’ breeding ranges. Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) compared this atlas to another one conducted between 1980 and 1985 for 83 species of birds that traditionally have bred in New York and found that many had extended their range boundaries northward, some by as many as 40 miles (64 kilometers).

"But the real signal came out with some of the northerly species that are more common in Canada and the northern part of the U.S.," said Benjamin Zuckerberg, a Ph.D. student at SUNY. "Their southern range boundaries are actually moving northward as well, at a much faster clip."  Some of the species making this southern boundary shift are the Nashville warbler, a little bird with a yellow belly; the pine siskin, a common finch that resembles a sparrow; and the red-bellied woodpecker, considered the most common woodpecker in the Southeast. The shifts, announced today, are occurring in a relatively short amount of time, the researchers also pointed out, happening in a matter of decades. These changes are also consistent with the predictions of regional warming, they added.

Moisture pockets being carried along in the trade wind flow, will keep showers falling at times along the windward sides…less showers along the leeward sides in general. Satellite imagery shows more of these passing showers on the horizon, so expect more of the same at times. The leeward sides will have fewer showers, although there may be a few around even there. We don’t expect anything too unusual in terms of precipitation, although the north fringe of a tropical system moving by to our south should increase showers later this week…most generously on Maui and the Big Island.

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) continues tracking tropical depression Kika, located far to the southwest of the islands Monday night. Here’s a looping satellite picture, showing this tropical cyclone moving away towards the west. Here’s a storm tracking map showing this tropical system in relation to the Hawaiian Islands. Looking to the of Hawaii, you will also see recently downgraded tropical storm Hernan in the eastern Pacific. Hernan is a gradually weakening tropical cyclone, which will dissipating in strength, as it moves over cooler water through the remainder of its life cycle. Despite all this tropical activity, neither of these storms will have any influence on our local weather here in the Hawaiian Islands. There is a chance that whatever leftover moisture, which may be involved with, what will then be former tropical cyclone Hernan…may bring some showers to the southern part of the state next week.

~~~ This satellite image shows the two main areas of interest around the Hawaiian Islands. The area to the southwest, to the lower left of the islands, is tropical depression Kika…no problem there as this system remains on course towards the west. The area of disturbed weather to the east-southeast, is a region of tropical moisture, around a vortex of low pressure. All the computer models show this tropical disturbance moving towards our islands, then turning westward…remaining to the south of Hawaii. There remains the good chance of showers arriving later this week, and that our local trade winds will accelerate as this tropical system moves by Friday into the weekend.

It’s early Monday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative. The new work started off in a pretty good way, with the trade winds still quite snappy, along with more of those common windward biased showers.























The strongest wind gust that I saw at 5pm was once again, which isn’t the slightest bit unusual…at Maalaea Bay on Maui, at 40 mph. The island of Lanai wasn’t too far behind, with the cup anemometer there twirling to the tune of 37 mph. Looking ahead, Tuesday will be a transition day, with our local trade winds finally starting to calm down. They will remain on the lighter side through Thursday, due to storms filing by in the middle latitudes to our north. Friday will be another transition day, as the trade winds surge again, and with quite a few showers riding in on the strengthening trades. The source of these showers will be an area of disturbed weather moving by to the south of Hawaii. I’ll be back very early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Monday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Note: I will be flying to Honolulu late Wednesday afternoon, to attend a Climate Conference on Oahu Thursday and Friday. Friends on Oahu, who live on the windward side in Kailua, have invited me to spend some time with them Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. I will fly back to Maui late Sunday afternoon. This means that I























will not be doing my tv weather show on Thursday, and then again not on Friday…which is a local state holiday. I will not be updating, or at least not regularly, this website during that time frame. The daily forecasts, in the upper left hand column on this and all other pages, will continue to have the latest weather forecasts however. Glenn

Information about tonight’s Perseids Meteor shower

Interesting:

A new variety of premium grapes debuted in Japan on Monday, with a single bunch fetching as much as 100,000 yen, or $910. A Japanese hotel manager paid that amount, or about $26 per grape, for a 1 1/2 pound bunch of the Ruby Roman grapes to serve guests at an upscale hotel, officials said. "We believe the price was probably a record high," said local agricultural official Hirofumi Isu. "They’re delicious – sweet but fresh at the same time, very well balanced." The tomato-colored grapes made their debut at an auction in Japan‘s northwestern Ishikawa prefecture, where they have been under development since 1994 in a state-led project. The bunch that fetched the top price had about 35 grapes, each slightly smaller than a pingpong ball, Isu said.

The average price for the Ruby Roman grapes at Monday’s auction was about $245 a bunch. Isu said local farmers hope to sell 1,500 bunches, or 1 ton, of the grapes by mid-September. Fruit is generally expensive in Japan, and people often buy grapes, peaches and melons as luxury gifts. Japanese are often willing to pay top prices for high-end fruits, especially for the prestige of owning the very first ones of the year. Monday’s prices far exceeded those for the most popular premium variety, Muscat of Alexandria, which sell for as much as $90 a bunch at Tokyo‘s Ota fruit market, the country’s largest, according to Koichi Kato, an official at fruit wholesaler Tokyo Seika Co. "It could be a congratulatory price for its debut," Kato said of Monday’s auction in Ishikawa. "Tokyo‘s largest fruit market is very competitive."

Interesting2:

Already threatened by a thaw of ice around the North Pole, the polar bear’s title as the top Arctic predator may under challenge from a shark. Scientists researching how far sharks hunt seals in the Arctic were stunned in June to find part of the jaw of a young polar bear in the stomach of a Greenland shark, a species that favors polar waters. "We’ve never heard of this before. We don’t know how it got there," Kit Kovacs, of the Norwegian Polar Institute, told Reuters of the 10 cm (4 inch) bone found in a shark off the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. "We can’t say whether or not the shark took a swimming young bear" or ate a carcass, she said. "We don’t know how active these sharks are as predators." Most shark experts contacted said it was likely the bear was dead before the shark found it. Even a young, two- or three-year-old bear would be a ferocious opponent for a Greenland shark, which can grow to up to 7 meters (23 feet) and weigh more than a tonne. "It sounds like a scavenge," said Steve Campana, head of the Canadian shark research laboratory at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

He said he had not heard of a shark eating a bear before and it was a "million dollar question" for researchers as to whether Greenland sharks attack live bears. Bits of animals including caribou have been found in Greenland shark stomachs in the past — scavenged or attacked swimming. Campana said there was even a myth that the sharks could leap out of the water and seize caribou standing on ice. "There’s no possibility a Greenland shark could predate a live adult white bear unless it was injured or seriously ill," said Jeffrey Gallant, co-director of a Canadian-based Greenland shark education and research group. Sonja Fordham, deputy chair of the shark specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said more research was needed into the Greenland shark’s habits. "Greenland sharks do seem quite sluggish … but they have been known to move very quickly when they are eating," she said.

Interesting3:

As the Arctic Ocean warms this century, shellfish, snails and other animals from the Pacific Ocean will resume an invasion of the northern Atlantic that was interrupted by cooling conditions three million years ago, predict Geerat Vermeij, professor of geology at the University of California, Davis, and Peter Roopnarine at the California Academy of Sciences. Climate models predict a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean by 2050. That will restore conditions that last existed during the mid-Pliocene era around three to 3.5 million years ago. Several north Pacific species have relatives in the north Atlantic, and the fossil record shows a lot of invasion from the Pacific to the Atlantic at that time, Vermeij said. When cold conditions returned, the Arctic route was cut off, mostly by a lack of food. As the ice melts, productivity in the Arctic will rise and the northward march of the mollusks will resume where it left off three million years ago. Vermeij and Roopnarine reviewed literature on mollusks found in the Bering and Chuckchi seas between Alaska and eastern Siberia.

At least 77 molluscan lineages, about a third of the species of shallow-water shellfish in the Bering Sea, have the potential to spread to the Atlantic, they concluded. Three factors drove the one-way traffic across the North Pole during the Pliocene, Vermeij said. The Bering and Chukchi seas are very productive, with abundant food; there is a net northward flow of water from the Pacific through the Bering Strait; and strong competition in the Bering Sea means bigger, tougher animals. But the invaders will not wipe out native species, Vermeij said. The fossil record shows that invasions rarely lead to species extinction in marine environments, he said. Instead, the invasion will add new species and hybrids and increase competition in the North Atlantic. "The composition and dynamics of north Atlantic communities will change," Roopnarine said. "But whether that will help or harm local fisheries is an open question. Humans may have to adapt as well."

Interesting4: If wind energy converters are located anywhere near a residential area, they must never become too noisy even in high winds. Most such power units try to go easy on their neighbors’ ears, but even the most careful design cannot prevent noise from arising at times: One source is the motion of the rotor blades, another is the cogwheels that produce vibrations in the gearbox. These are relayed to the tower of the wind turbine, where they are emitted across a wide area — and what the residents hear is a humming noise. "People find these monotone sounds particularly unpleasant, rather like the whining of a mosquito," says André Illgen, a research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU in Dresden.

If the wind energy converters hum too loudly, they are only permitted to operate under partial load: They rotate at a slower speed and generate less electricity. In some cases the operators have to install additional damping systems or even replace the gearbox — an expensive business. However, the effectiveness of the passive damping systems used until now is somewhat limited: They only absorb noise at a certain frequency. Since modern wind energy converters adapt their rotational speed to the wind velocity in order to generate as much electricity as possible, however, the frequency of the humming sound also varies. Despite noise attenuation measures, humming noises penetrate the surrounding area.

There don’t appear to be any organized rain makers taking aim on our Hawaiian Islands for the time being. The rainfall associated with compact tropical depression Kika, is too far south to bring moisture up into our latitudes. This leaves us in what we could consider a fairly normal trade wind weather pattern, with just the usual generally light passing showers, favoring the night and early morning hours. Most leeward beaches will remain dry, although there may be an occasional shower here and there. There’s a chance that later in the new work week, that we may find an increase in showers, as moisture arrives from the deeper tropics to the southeast.

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) continues tracking tropical depression Kika, our first cyclone of the 2008 hurricane season…located to the southwest of the islands Sunday evening. Here’s a looping satellite picture of this tropical cyclone. Here’s a storm tracking map to show this tropical system in relation to the Hawaiian Islands – please note that we have a hurricane in the eastern Pacific, named Hernan. Hernan is a gradually weakening hurricane, which has peaked out in strength, and is destined for the tropical cyclone graveyard, as it moves over cooler water over the next 4-5 days. Despite all this tropical activity, neither of these storms will have any influence on our local weather here in the Hawaiian Islands. There is a chance that whatever leftover moisture that may be involved with what will then be former hurricane Hernan…may bring some showers to the southern part of the state eventually.

~~~ This satellite image shows the three main areas of interest around the Hawaiian Islands. The area north-northeast of Hawaii is rapidly thinning high cirrus clouds, too far away to dim our daytime sunshine. The area to the southwest, below the islands, is tropical depression Kika…no problem there as this system remains on course towards the west. The large area to the east-southeast, is a region of tropical moisture, which may move northwest over our area later in the new week ahead? If it were to move into our islands, or near by, there’s a chance it could deposit rainfall, perhaps even heavy preciptiation, which would be a positive step in pushing back the drought conditions that exist in many parts of the Hawaiian Islands at the moment.  We’ll have to wait and see if this area develops into a tropical cyclone, in which case it could bring rains to the Big Island and Maui around Thursday or Friday…that’s still a question however. 

It’s early Sunday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative. Sunday was a hot day, even in the upcountry areas, with elevations between 2,000 and 4,000 feet. All that heat, caused clouds to gather along the slopes of the mountains…which dropped late afternoon showers locally, which is fairly common here in the tropics. The winds remained rather blustery down hear the coasts, with the ocean chalked-up with white caps, and the coconut palm trees swaying to and fro. The strongest gusts late Sunday afternoon occurred here on Maui, where Maalaea Bay had winds topping out at 38 mph, while the Kahului airport saw winds reaching 40 mph! Here in Kula, at the 3,100 foot elevation, my wind chimes are sounding off, although faintly under the influence of only light breezes. Monday will continue the long number of days with at least moderately strong trade winds blowing, with the trade winds tempering some starting Tuesday, as a low pressure system in the Gulf of Alaska erodes the high pressure cell and ridges to our north then. I’ll be back very early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you happen to be reading from! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Unbelievably large waves…in Tahiti!!

There don’t appear to be any organized rain makers taking aim on our Hawaiian Islands for the time being. The rainfall associated with compact tropical depression Kika, is too far south to bring moisture up into our latitudes. This leaves us in what we could consider a fairly normal trade wind weather pattern, with just the usual generally light passing showers, favoring the night and early morning hours. Most leeward beaches will remain dry, although there may be an occasional shower here and there. There’s a chance that later next week may find an increase in showers, as moisture arrives from the deeper tropics.

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) continues tracking recently upgraded tropical storm Kika, our first cyclone of the 2008 hurricane season…located to the south of the islands Saturday night. Here’s a looping satellite picture of this tropical cyclone. Here’s a storm tracking map to show this tropical system in relation to the Hawaiian Islands – please note that we have a hurricane in the eastern Pacific, named Hernan. Hernan is a strong hurricane with winds near 120 mph, which will be peaking out in strength soon, before it moves over cooler water and down cycles in strength thereafter. Despite all this tropical activity, neither of these storms will have any influence on our local weather here in the Hawaiian Islands. 

~~~ This satellite image shows the three main areas of interest around the Hawaiian Islands. The area north of Hawaii is high cirrus clouds, no rain there, and too far away to dim our moon or sunshine at the moment. The area to the south, below the islands, is tropical storm Kika moving to the west more or less. The large area to the southeast, to the lower right of the islands, is an area of tropical moisture, which may or may not move northwest over our area later in the new week ahead? If it were to move into our neck of the woods, there’s a chance it could deposit rainfall, perhaps even heavy preciptiation, which would be a positive step in pushing back the drought conditions that exist in many parts of the Hawaiian Islands at the moment. The GFS model (at the time of this writing) shows this area of tropical clouds moving more or less towards us during the next week, with the trade winds carrying it by to our south thereafter. I wonder if the northern fringe of that cloud shield might bring rains to the Big Island and Maui around next Thursday or Friday? 

It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative.  Saturday was a great day here in the islands, albeit it a bit windier than usual in some places. Skies remained quite clear and sunny generally, with just the few showers falling as expected, along the windward sides of the islands. I see little change in store through the rest of this weekend. I had to go over to Haiku for a haircut this morning, which put me within close proximity of Baldwin Beach. I hit the beach, only to find the sand blowing around, and the ocean full of white caps. I took a nice walk anyway, and found the ocean to be warm and friendly, even though the waves were somewhat larger than what I would expect on a summer day. All the trade winds have kicked up a wind swell along our east facing beaches, which send some wrapping waves over to the north shores. When I drove by Hookipa Beach Park, there were members of the surfing and windsurfing communities taking full advantage of the waves that were breaking there. I’m home in Kula now, and ready to watch what looks like it will be a nice sunset from my weather deck. I’ll be back Sunday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Unbelievably large waves…in Tahiti!!

The trade winds will carry periodic showers onto the windward sides, while most leeward areas will remain dry and quite sunny during the days. There don’t appear to be any organized rain makers taking aim on our Hawaiian Islands for the time being. The rainfall associated with compact tropical depression Kika, is too far south to bring moisture up into our latitudes. This leaves us in what we could consider a fairly normal trade wind weather pattern, with just the usual generally light passing showers, favoring the night and early morning hours. There’s a chance that later next week may find better odds for an increase in showers, as tropical moisture arrives.

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) continues tracking recently down graded tropical depression Kika, our first cyclone of the 2008 hurricane season…located to the south of the island Friday evening. Here’s a looping satellite picture of this tropical cyclone. Here’s a storm tracking map to show this tropical system in relation to the Hawaiian Islands – please note that we have a hurricane in the eastern Pacific, named Hernan. Despite all this tropical activity, none of this will have any influence on our local weather here in the Hawaiian Islands. Kika is too far away to have any discernable influence on our local weather. The hurricane models have Kika increasing in strength now, which will likely push it back into the tropical storm category…while is continues its more or less westward movement.

It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative. Friday was yet another fairly windy day, like all the days this week have been. The strongest gust that I saw occurred on Kahoolawe during the afternoon hours, reaching an impressive 42 mph. At 530pm Maalaea Bay here on Maui, was still reading 38 mph, which is certainly enough to keep the waters of that windy bay roughed-up with choppy water full of white caps. Meanwhile, Kika is still churning by us to the south, and ready to increase in strength, back up into the tropical storm level. This storm continues to be not a problem here in the Hawaiian Islands. Here’s the latest satellite image of this small compact storm directly south of our islands Friday night. Looking at that satellite picture, we see just scattered clouds being carried in our direction on the trade winds, although as you can see, nothing organized in nature. I would typically go see a new film after work, but the truth is that I don’t see anything that really pulls me in, so I’m just going to go home and have a relaxed evening reading or whatever. I hope you have a great Friday night, and will join me here again early Saturday morning, when I’ll have your next new weather narrative from paradise available then. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Crystal Blue Persuasion…Tommy James and the Shondells – as a Friday evening treat from the past.

Unbelievably large waves…in Tahiti!!

Interesting:

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) plans to set up as many as 200 recharging stations for electric cars around the Japanese capital next year, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday.  But a TEPCO spokesman denied the report and said: "While it is not wrong that TEPCO has completed demonstration tests for devices that charge batteries, we do not at this time have plans to take the initiative in setting up charging locations within the city."  EPCO, Japan’s largest utility, has developed a device that powers an electric car to run 40 km (25 miles) after a five-minute charge and 60 km (37 miles) after a 10-minute charge, the spokesman said.

Car makers such as Nissan Motor and Mitsubishi Motors are preparing to roll out electric vehicles in coming years, amid soaring gasoline fuel prices and concerns about global warming. Car dealers selling Mitsubishi Motors and Subaru cars made by Fuji Heavy Industries have agreed to have TEPCO’s recharging stations at their shops, while supermarket retailer Aeon plans to host them at some outlets, the paper said. It said TEPCO would also include carparks, convenience stores, banks and post offices in the charging network it plans to set up in the financial year to March 2010, with the aim of expanding the number of stations to around 1,000 in three years or so. 

Interesting2:

When you buy food with a "USDA organic" label, do you know what you’re getting? Now is a good time to ask such a question, as the USDA just announced Monday it was putting 15 out of 30 federally accredited organic certifiers they audited on probation, allowing them 12 months to make corrections or lose their accreditation. At the heart of the audit for several certifiers were imported foods and ingredients from other countries, including China. Chinese imports have had a bad year in the news, making headlines for contaminated pet food, toxic toys, and recently, certified organic ginger contaminated with levels of a pesticide called aldicarb that can cause nausea, headaches and blurred vision even at low levels. The ginger, sold under the 365 label at Whole Foods Market, contained a level of aldicarb not even permissible for conventional ginger, let alone organics.

Whole Foods immediately pulled the product from its shelves. Ronnie Cummins, the national director of the Organic Consumers Association, emphasizes that most organic farmers "play by the rules." They believe in organic principles and thereby comply with organic standards. Unfortunately, Congress’ pitifully inadequate funding for enforcement, including for organic imports from countries like China, "guarantees it’ll be easy for unscrupulous players to cheat, and that’s obviously what’s going on here."  Farms that produce USDA-certified organic food are not personally inspected by anyone from the USDA National Organic Program (NOP). As a small and underfunded agency within the USDA (it has fewer than a dozen employees), NOP relies on what it calls Accredited Certifying Agencies — ACAs — to do the legwork. The ACAs take responsibility for ensuring that any farm or processor bearing the organic label meets the strict requirements for certification.

Interesting3:

The GangesRiver  in India, is proof that even the holiest of nature's creations can fall victim to the destructive powers of pollution. Thousands of Hindu followers have their bodies committed to the Ganges each year in belief that the river's waters will carry their souls to eternal salvation. With nearly 89 million liters of raw sewage flowing into the Ganges each day, the health of the waterway is now worse than ever before. Existing facilities can often treat only 13 percent of this pollution. Those who drink from the river risk contracting waterborne diseases such as typhoid, polio, and jaundice. In hopes of improving the river's fate, a coalition of Hindu spiritual leaders, environmental scientists, and water advocates is threatening the Indian government with large-scale protests if sanitation controls are not soon improved. They are calling for the government to increase pollution penalties and declare the GangesRiver a national heritage site, which they say would ensure better environmental controls.

"The river is choking with filth. Effluents from all the cities and industries drain into the river unchecked, and it affects the lives of nearly 500 million people," said Baba Ramdev, a popular yoga teacher, the Indo-Asian News Service reported. "If the government refuses to concede our demands, then we will launch a mass movement from September 18."  The increased frustration over sanitation is not unique to India. Worldwide, a growing number of activists are demanding that their governments move beyond rhetoric on water policy this year, the United Nations-designated International Year of Sanitation. The U.N. General Assembly created the International Year of Sanitation to raise awareness for the U.N. Millennium Development Goal that by 2015 the number of people who live without access to decent sanitation will be cut in half. But progress has so far fallen below expectations.

Interesting4:

Federal health experts declared a small victory against a fatal and untreatable virus on Friday, saying canine rabies has disappeared from the United States. While dogs may still become infected from raccoons, skunks or bats, they will not catch dog-specific rabies from another dog, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. "We don't want to misconstrue that rabies has been eliminated -- dog rabies virus has been," CDC rabies expert Dr. Charles Rupprecht told Reuters in a telephone interview. Rabies evolves to match the animals it infects, and the strain most specific to dogs has not been seen anywhere in the United States since 2004, Rupprecht said. While the incubation period for rabies is as long as six years in humans, it is only six months in a dog.

"Even though we still live in a sea of rabies and even though we have rabies viruses circulating among raccoons and foxes and bats, the dog rabies virus, which is the most responsible for dog-to-dog transmission and which is still the greatest burden to humans ... it is that virus that has been eliminated." Rabies kills 55,000 people a year globally, according to the World Health Organization. It is easily prevented with a vaccine, but many people do not realize they have been infected and once symptoms begin to show, it is almost impossible to treat.

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.

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