March 9-10, 2009
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 72
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 74
Kahului, Maui – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 75
Kailua-kona – 78
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Monday afternoon:
Kapalua, Maui – 79F
Lihue, Kauai – 68
Haleakala Crater – 41 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 28 (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:
2.99 Hanalei River, Kauai
3.59 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.17 Molokai
0.06 Lanai
0.04 Kahoolawe
1.16 Oheo Gulch, Maui
3.93 Hilo airport, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1033 millibar high pressure system located far to the northeast of the islands. Meanwhile, we have a trough of low pressure, both at the surface and aloft aligned over the Big Island. Our winds will remain generally light, although stronger and gusty in some 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
Sunset on the Kona coast
Photo credit: Flickr.com
Our local winds will be variable in strength, with a tendency towards locally gusty trade winds during the first half of this week…then cool north breezes brought in by a cold Front Thursday onward. We have a low pressure system, with its associated trough, over the islands as we start this new work week. Our winds will remain generally light, although locally stronger and gusty going into Tuesday. A developing low pressure system to the north of the islands by Thursday, will bring cool northerly breezes our way going into the upcoming weekend.
Weather maps show a trough of low pressure running through the island chain early Monday evening. This area of low pressure will keep unsettled weather in our vicinity over the next couple of days. This means that we’ll continue to see spotty rainfall, some of which will be locally heavy. It’s not out of the question for a thunderstorm or two to develop here and there. As we reach Thursday, we will likely see a shower producing cold front arrive…with another one late this weekend.
This atmospheric destabilizing low pressure system, with its trough, will help to keep our sunshine limited. Our overlying skies will remain partly to mostly cloudy going into Tuesday. This looping satellite image shows the extent of this cloudiness…much of which consists of the high clouds brought our way on the upper winds aloft…although there’s lower level clouds around too. The combination of ample moisture, along with the presence of low pressure in our area, will keep the threat of heavy showers around for the time being.
Showers are mostly falling over the ocean offshore from the islands Tuesday evening. Looking at this looping radar image, we see the extent of the showers in our area remains most active to the south of Oahu and Maui County, and to the north of those islands as well…in addition to the area east of the Big Island. The air mass is still shower prone, so that we could see showers coming ashore at times overnight into Tuesday. The daytime heating of the islands, could easily prompt thick clouds again, especially over the interior sections. These cumulus clouds may lead to more showers on each of the islands.
The cloudy skies just won’t go away! A multi-level canopy of high, middle, and lower level clouds are sticking like glue to our area. At the moment, it appears that these clouds may be thinning, or even shifting to the east, away from Kauai and Oahu. The thickest part of this conveyor belt of clouds, are riding over Maui County and the Big Island. I think just about everyone here in the islands now, would like to see these semi-permanent upper level clouds move away…which may be happening more fully during the day Tuesday into Wednesday.
~~~ Looking out the window here in Kihei, Maui, before I take the drive upcountry to Kula…it’s cloudy out there! I feel like I’ve been writing those same words almost everyday for weeks! We haven’t seen a mostly sunny day forever, or so it seems. At any rate, I’m going home to change clothes, and to get out there for a walk under these cloudy skies now. I don’t see any rain around, so at least that’s good. I’ll be back early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative, can I still call it paradise, even with all these clouds around? By the way, after driving through thick fog between Pukalani and Kula, which cleared shortly thereafter, making way for a wonderfully bright orange sunset! I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you happen to be reading from! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Icy looking picture of the top of Mauna Kea summit…on the Big Island!
One more thing, if you have left me a response in the reply box, down the page from here, and you can’t find it…or my answer, here’s what to do: go to the left hand margin of this page, and find where it says "Other Useful Links", and from there scroll down to where it says Archived Narratives. If you click there, you can go back to the previous day, where you’ll find what you wrote, and what I wrote back at the bottom of that page. By the way, from there you can go back and find any narrative that I’ve written, over the last almost three years!
Interesting: A glass of wine or a bottle or two of beer a day may strengthen the bones of older men and women, but drinking more than that could actually weaken bones, according to new research from the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. The research, on men and post-menopausal women over 60 years of age, found that regular moderate alcohol intake was associated with greater bone mineral density (BMD).
While earlier research had suggested the link between moderate drinking and improved bone density, the Tufts’ study looked specifically at the "possible effects of three alcohol classes, beer, wine and liquor, on BMD," said Katherine Tucker, the director of the epidemiology research program at Tufts. "We saw stronger associations between higher BMD and beer drinkers, who were mostly men, and wine drinkers, who were mostly women, compared with liquor drinkers," she said.
Tucker and her colleagues speculated that silicon found in beer is contributing to the higher bone density in men. It is less clear why liquor and wine might protect bone density. The researchers also emphasized that drinking too much is damaging to bones and noted that "no one should depend solely on alcohol to maintain bone density."
Interesting2: The Amazon is surprisingly sensitive to drought, according to new research conducted throughout the world’s largest tropical forest. The 30-year study, published in Science, provides the first solid evidence that drought causes massive carbon loss in tropical forests, mainly through killing trees. "For years the Amazon forest has been helping to slow down climate change.
But relying on this subsidy from nature is extremely dangerous", said Professor Oliver Phillips, from the University of Leeds and the lead author of the research. "If the earth’s carbon sinks slow or go into reverse, as our results show is possible, carbon dioxide levels will rise even faster. Deeper cuts in emissions will be required to stabilize our climate."
The study, a global collaboration between more than 40 institutions, was based on the unusual 2005 drought in the Amazon. This gave scientists a glimpse into the region’s future climate, in which a warming tropical North Atlantic may cause hotter and more intense dry seasons. The 2005 drought sharply reversed decades of carbon absorption, in which Amazonia helped slow climate change.
In normal years the forest absorbs nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide. The drought caused a loss of more than 3 billion tons. The total impact of the drought – 5 billion extra tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – exceeds the annual emissions of Europe and Japan combined. "Visually, most of the forest appeared little affected, but our records prove tree death rates accelerated. Because the region is so vast, even small ecological effects can scale-up to a large impact on the planet’s carbon cycle," explained Professor Phillips.
Interesting3: The United States must make deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions than proposed by President Barack Obama if the world is to stand a chance of avoiding devastating, an EU official said. Jos Delbeke, the European Commission’s deputy director-general of the environment, said a goal of bringing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, set by Obama last month, will probably not be enough.
"I doubt whether that will bring us to the average required by developed countries," he told Reuters on Friday. "We in Europe would hope the U.S. will do more than stabilization of 1990 levels. I will not hide that." Scientists say global emissions must stabilize by 2015, than fall by some 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 if the world is to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius.
A rise of over 2 degrees may trigger widespread flooding, droughts, disease and famine, United Nations scientists said. The 27-nation European Union has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, upping that target to 30 percent if a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol climate pact is signed.
"The EU’s position is that developed countries, as a group, must cut 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020," Delbeke told a clean energy conference held by analysts New Energy Finance. With its carbon dioxide emissions rising nearly 20 percent since 1990, the United States is the most polluting developed country. Stabilization of U.S. emissions at 1990 levels in 2020 would make it near impossible for developed countries to reach the EU’s 30 percent group target.
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