March 30-31, 2009
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 82
Kaneohe, Oahu – 77
Kahului, Maui – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 77
Kailua-kona – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Monday afternoon:
Honolulu, Oahu – 80F
Lihue, Kauai – 73
Haleakala Crater – missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (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 Monday afternoon:
0.83 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.84 South Fork Kaukonahua, Oahu
0.02 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.01 Kahoolawe
3.55 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.77 Mountain View, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a strong 1037 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. Our trade winds will be moderate to locally strong and gusty Tuesday and Wednesday…lighter in those more protected places.
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. Finally, here’s a looping IR satellite image, making viewable the clouds around the islands 24 hours a day. 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
The kind of place that we’d all like to spend some time!
Photo Credit: Google.com
Strong and gusty trade winds will be the name of the game this week! A large 1037 millibar high pressure system remains the source of these locally strong and gusty winds Monday night. These winds are strong enough to keep small craft wind advisories active over all of Hawaii’s channel and coastal waters, from Kauai down through the Big Island. The NWS office in Honolulu is hinting that we may see gale warnings going up in those windiest channel waters by mid-week. A wind advisory went up over the Haleakala Crater summit on Maui Monday…where 25-40 mph winds are occurring.
It’s pretty dry out there right now, although as the trade winds become even more blustery, we should start to see more showers being carried our way…generally along the windward sides. The high clouds, which have dimmed and filtered our sunshine too much lately, are now located to the southwest and southeast of the islands. Looking at this satellite image, we can see them sort of looming down to the left hand side of all our islands. As the winds are locally quite strong, it would be best to hit the beaches during the mornings, as the winds are apt to be strongest during the afteroon hours.
Let’s keep track of the trade wind gusts again Monday, as they will continue to dominate our Hawaiian Island weather picture. These trade winds were still quite gusty at around 4pm Monday afternoon, with these numbers (mph) the strongest on each of the individual islands:
Kauai: 33
Oahu: 39
Molokai: 38
Lanai: 40
Kahoolawe: 48
Maui: 42
Big Island: 42
We find all the islands having gusts well up into the 30 mph range late Monday afternoon…with the one gust up up to 48 mph on the small island of Kahoolawe! If the winds become even more gusty later this week, which is expected, they will be topping 50 mph in those windiest areas. It may become necessary to secure loose objects in those most gusty areas on some of the islands by mid-week.
It’s early Monday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin typing out this last section. Looking at the very latest top gust around the state, at around 5pm, we find a 46 mph reading at Kahoolawe, that small island offshore from south Maui. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to have winds gusting up to near 55 mph at some point by Wednesday or Thursday. Otherwise, looking out the windows here in Kihei, before I take the drive back upcountry to Kula, it’s sunny, really sunny! It’s not that windy along the south coast of Maui, as the trade winds are so easterly in direction. At the moment, they are blowing what I would estimate to be near 5-15 mph here in Kihei. Places that are more exposed to the easterlies however, are finding much stronger winds. Kahului airport at the same time was experiencing 35 mph gusts, while Maalaea Bay was checking in with 40 mph. Kapalua and Napili are feeling the winds too, where they are blowing close to 35 mph in gusts. I just called my neighbors in Kula, and they said the wind was essentially calm. It’s all about the direction of the winds here in Hawaii! ~~~ I’m just about ready to jump in the car, and as soon as I get home, I’ll jump into my tennis shoes, and walking clothes. I can’t wait to get out on the road for my evening walk, it always feels so good! I hope you have a great Monday night, and that wish comes hand in hand with an invitation to join me here again on Tuesday, same time and same station, so to speak! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Juan Lopez reads meters with one eye and looks for snakes with the other. Lopez is a member of the "Python Patrol," a team of utility workers, wildlife officials, park rangers and police trying to keep Burmese pythons from gaining a foothold in the Florida Keys. Officials say the pythons — which can grow to 20 feet long and eat large animals whole — are being ditched by pet owners in the Florida Everglades, threatening the region’s endangered species and its ecosystem.
"Right now, we have our fingers crossed that they haven’t come this far yet, but if they do, we are prepared," Lopez said.Burmese Pythons are rarely seen in the middle Florida Keys, where Lopez works. The Nature Conservancy wants to keep it that way The Python Patrol program was started by Alison Higgins, the Nature Conservancy’s Florida Keys conservation manager.
She describes it as an "early detection, rapid response" program made up of professionals who work outside. Eight Burmese pythons have been found in the Keys. "If we can keep them from spreading and breeding, then we’re that much more ahead of the problem," Higgins said. Utility workers, wildlife officials and police officers recently attended a three-hour class about capturing the enormously large snakes.
Lt. Jeffrey L. Fobb of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Venom Response Unit taught the participants how to capture pythons. "There’s no immutable laws of snake catching. It’s what works," Fobb said as he demonstrated catching a snake with hooks, bags, blankets and his hands. "We’re doing it in the Florida Keys because we have a lot to protect," Higgins said.
"The Burmese pythons that are coming out of the Everglades are eating a lot of our endangered species and other creatures, and we want to make sure they don’t breed here." Where the snakes are breeding is just north of the Keys in Everglades National Park. An estimated 30,000 Burmese pythons live in the park. The Everglades, known as the "River of Grass," is a vast area with a climate perfect for these pythons to hide and breed.
And breed they do: The largest clutches of eggs found in the Everglades have numbered up to 83. The snakes grow like they’re on steroids. With a life span of 30 years, these pythons can weigh as much as 200 pounds. And the larger the snake, the bigger the prey. Biologists have found endangered wood rats, birds, bobcats and other animals in their stomachs.
Two 5-foot-long alligators were found in the stomachs of Burmese pythons that were caught and necropsied, officials say. Officials also say Burmese pythons can travel 1.6 miles a day by land, and they can swim to reach areas outside the Everglades. This non-venomous species was brought into the United States from Southeast Asia. Everglades National Park spokeswoman Linda Friar says biologists believe that well-intended pet owners are to blame for their introduction into the Everglades.
Interesting2: The Anchorage, Alaska, airport reopened Sunday, a day after it was closed when a volcano in Alaska erupted and shot ash some 45,000 feet in the air. Ash from the Mount Redoubt volcano fell around the city, Alaska’s largest, resulting in the closure of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Only a trace amount of the ash reached the airport grounds, airport spokesman Jeremy Lindseth said, but it was enough to affect operations.
The airport reopened about 2 p.m. (6 p.m. ET) Sunday, according to the airport’s operations office. Saturday’s eruption occurred at about 1:30 p.m. (5:30 p.m. ET), the U.S. Geological Survey told CNN. Mount Redoubt erupted three times on Friday, at times shooting ash 51,000 feet into the air. There were no eruptions Sunday, the Alaska Volcano Observatory said, but seismic activity continued and the observatory kept its alert level at red, its highest possible designation.
That level indicates that an eruption is under way or imminent and that the eruption will produce a "significant emission of volcanic ash into the atmosphere." Saturday’s eruptions were the latest in a series that began March 22. Friday’s volcano activity prompted Alaska Airlines to limit flights to and from Anchorage, according to the airline’s Web site.
It canceled all its Thursday flights to and from Anchorage after an eruption earlier in the day sent an ash cloud 65,000 feet high. iReport.com: Send photos, videos of the volcanic ash. The airline said on its Web site Sunday that flights "may experience delays or cancellations due to the eruption of Mount Redoubt."
Interesting3: Residents across the Southeast weren’t singing when they called emergency and weather officials to report "great balls of fire" in the night sky. Residents in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia reported brilliant, streaking lights followed by a thunderous sound about 9:45 p.m. Sunday. National Weather Service officials say they have no explanation for the sky lighting up in shades of yellow, white, orange and blue. The unusual sky prompted hundreds of calls, with some saying they saw "great balls of fire." The weather service says no damage has been reported.
Interesting4: From the Great Pyramids to the Acropolis, and the London Eye to the Las Vegas strip, nearly 4,000 cities and towns in 88 countries joined in the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored event, a time zone-by-time zone plan to dim non-essential lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm. Dr Richard Dixon of WWF Scotland said: "Earth Hour was the biggest ever show of support for action on climate change. "Millions of people showed world leaders they want strong action." Interest has spiked ahead of planned negotiations on a new global warming treaty in Copenhagen this December.
Organisers are calling Earth Hour a "global election", with switching off the lights seen as a vote for the Earth and failure to do so a vote for global warming. Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley said: "Earth Hour has always been a positive campaign. It’s always around street parties, not street protests. It’s the idea of hope, not despair. And I think that’s something that’s been incredibly important this year because there is so much despair around.
"The primary reason we do it is because we want people to think, even if it is for an hour, what they can do to lower their carbon footprint, and ideally take that beyond the hour." Landmarks including the London Eye, the Gherkin and the BT Tower also took part last night, although activists warned companies in the financial sector they would have shut down electricity supplies themselves unless the lights went out.
Earlier yesterday, the Chatham Islands, a group of small islands 500 miles east of New Zealand, officially kicked off Earth Hour by switching off its diesel generators. Then Auckland’s Sky Tower, the tallest manmade structure in New Zealand, blinked off. Forty-four New Zealand towns and cities participated in the event, and more than 60,000 people showed up for an Earth Hour-themed hot air ballooning festival in Hamilton.
At Scott Base in Antarctica, New Zealand’s 26-member winter team resorted to minimum safety lighting and switched off appliances. In Asia, lights at landmarks in China, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines also dimmed as people celebrated with candlelit picnics and concerts. Buildings in Singapore’s business district went dark along with major landmarks, such as the Singapore Flyer.
China, which has overtaken the US as the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, was participating for the first time, with Beijing turning off the lights at its Bird’s Nest Stadium and Water Cube, the two most prominent venues for the Olympics, according to the WWF.
Interesting5: The warning has been made by Birmingham and Warwick university scientists, who say disinfectants and other products washed into sewers and rivers are triggering the growth of drug-resistant microbes. Soil samples from many areas have been found to contain high levels of bacteria with antibiotic-resistant genes, the scientists have discovered – raising fears that these may have already been picked up by humans.
"Every year, the nation produces 1.5m tons of sewage sludge and most of that is spread on farmland," said Dr William Gaze of Warwick University. That sludge contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria whose growth is triggered by chemicals in detergents, he explained. "In addition, we pump 11bn liters of water from houses and factories into our rivers and estuaries every day, and these are also spreading resistance."
The study is important because it suggests that the problem of drug resistance is not merely the result of the over-prescription of antibiotics or poor hygiene standards in hospitals. However, the team stressed the emergence of the most deadly superbugs – such as MRSA that has caused thousands of deaths in hospitals – is not linked to the use of disinfectants.
"Our research shows drug resistance is not confined to hospitals, but is out in the community. It is spreading and all the time it is eroding our ability to control infections. It is extremely worrying," said Professor Liz Wellington, also of Warwick University.
Interesting6: The global economic crisis is jeopardizing efforts to help the world’s growing number of slum dwellers, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday. The U.N. housing agency UN-Habitat, which is hosting a major meeting this week in the Kenyan capital, says the number of slum dwellers in the world could triple to 3 billion by 2050 if left unchecked. Delegates from dozens of nations, NGOs and grassroots groups are gathered in Nairobi to discuss how to allocate resources to the problem over the next two years in the face of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression.
"The persistence of urban poverty is largely the result of weak urban economies and finance," Ban said in a speech read to the meeting on his behalf. "The current global financial crisis and credit crunch only exacerbate this situation. There is a risk that our efforts … to address the shelter crisis will be rolled back."
Slums are most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, where 62 percent of the urban population have inadequate shelter, followed by south Asia with 43 percent and east Asia at 37 percent, Moon said. UN-Habitat boss Anna Tibaijuka said the U.S. sub-prime housing crisis was a "watershed" that put affordable housing on the agenda as an economic, rather than social, issue.
She said public-private partnerships were essential to providing housing solutions for the world’s poorest people, and could also help stimulate the economy. "Economists are emphasizing the economic importance of housing and urban infrastructure as part of the productive sector which will generate employment," she told reporters.
Interesting7: Ants don’t march in predictable patterns to search for crumbs, as you might have thought by watching them. Instead, new research suggests they roam randomly. This is not a matter of ant versus human intelligence, because a seemingly blind search can still make sense in both practical and mathematical terms. "The beauty of a mathematical random walk is that it eventually visits all points in space if you walk long enough — and it always returns to its starting point," said William Baxter, an experimental physicist at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.
Of course, Baxter notes, you might have to walk a long time to get back to the start. But a person who tries a search pattern, such as sweeping back and forth, can run into more trouble with unexpected obstacles. Baxter’s research stands out from others’ by using a controlled environment and a single ant, as opposed to studying foraging ants in the wild.
Tracking single ants allowed him to see how a single ant decides to search an area that is free of food, chemical clues or obstacles. Each small ant walked down a string from its colony to the study area, where the ants normally expect to find an area with food. However, Baxter and his colleagues removed the food while conducting the experiment.
The ant search patterns often crisscrossed previous paths, but none of the ants ever intentionally retraced their steps. A few backed up for a few millimeters on occasion, but only rarely. A next step could involve repeating the experiment with pairs of ants to see if a foraging partner changes the search pattern.
"Will the mathematical model change? I have no idea," Baxter told LiveScience. "But biologists have known for years that groups of ants can accomplish tasks that single ants cannot." Ants are known to communicate chemically and leave trails for others, which points to their cooperative intelligence and socially sophisticated ant societies. So for finding crumbs, two pair of antennae may turn out better than one – or the ant pairs might wander just as randomly as before.
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