Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / November 13-14, 2009

November 13-14, 2009

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

Lihue, Kauai –  81
Honolulu, Oahu – 86  
Kaneohe, Oahu – 86
Kaunakakai, Molokai – 87
Kahului, Maui – 85
Hilo, Hawaii – 72
Kailua-kona – 88

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level around the state – and on the highest mountains…at 5pm Friday evening:

Kahului, Maui – 83F
Hilo, Hawaii – 74

Haleakala Crater – 46    (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 Friday afternoon:

5.80 Kapahi, Kauai
5.41 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.04 Molokai 
0.03 Lanai
0.05 Kahoolawe
5.83 Oheo Gulch, Maui
6.00 Hilo airport, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1032 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. Winds will become strong and gusty from the trade wind direction into the weekend.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with this 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.

Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Here’s a tracking map covering both the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here.

Aloha Paragraphs

Weather conditions have come together in such a way over the last couple of days, to bring about an inclement set of circumstances…in regards to rain and thunderstorm activity. There were many thunderstorms in action, with an exceptional amount of loud thunder and bright lightning flashes. Thunderstorms are produced when we have unusually cold air aloft, and warm moist air near the surface…which we call an unstable atmosphere. This instability has kept our local air mass shower prone enough, that a flash flood watch remains active Friday night. This satellite image, with its very large and broad view of the Pacific Ocean, shows that the focus of lots of clouds is still surrounding the Hawaiian Islands as we end our work week. This feature is a counterclockwise rotating low pressure system, now positioned to the west-southwest of the Hawaiian Islands.

If we tighten our view by using this next satellite image, we see all kinds of thunderstorms, and their associated heavy rainfall surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. This looping radar image confirms that showers remain generally over the ocean Friday evening. The islands didn’t get nearly as wet as what we saw on Thursday, at least not thus far. The heavy precipitation seems to be just about equal distances offshore from Kauai and Big Island at the time of this writing. Actually, I was somewhat surprised that the showers didn’t edge onshore in more places during the day Friday. The chance of localized heavy showers isn’t out of the question just yet…although it looks like we may be heading in that direction as we move into the weekend.

Looking ahead, as the upper low continues to move further west, the influence of the strong high pressure to our NE will kick in. As this weather map shows, this anticyclone is weighing in at 1032 millibars Friday evening, and moving generally eastward. As the high gets further east, and the aforementioned low pressure system heads west, our islands will find strengthening trade winds. We’ll find small craft wind advisories, with our ocean conditions becoming more choppy. Looking at the observations early Friday evening, we see that gusts were reaching 40 mph at Kahoolawe, and 39 mph at South Point on the Big Island. These trade winds are expected to accelerate even more going into the weekend…remaining active into at least the first part of the upcoming new work week.

These trade winds will begin carrying some of the moisture, brought up from the deeper tropics (by the low pressure system)…depositing it along our north and east facing windward coasts and slopes. If this happens as the models have been pointing out, we could see wet trade wind conditions prevailing through the next several days, or perhaps a bit longer. The leeward sides will continue to dry out, although as is often the case with strong and gusty trade winds blowing…some moisture may get carried across the islands into the south and west leeward beaches locally. There is light at the end of the tunnel however, as the threat of heavy rains and thunderstorms will be fading as we go forward. This change should have happened by the second part of this weekend, gradually bringing us back around to a fairly typical trade wind weather pattern with time.

Looking out the window here in Kihei, Maui,  I see generally clear blue skies outside…as the sun sets into the Pacific Ocean. It’s been a rather exciting day or two, with still the outside chance that we’ll find some more showers arriving. As I noted above however, we are heading in the right direction, and should continue to see improvement going forward. The main change will be the strong and gusty trade winds, which will buffet the windward sides. The wind direction is very east now, so that the strongest winds will be felt most along those east facing shores…and slopes. ~~~ I’ve decided to go see the Michael Jackson film called This Is It (2009) again this evening, as I enjoyed it so much the first time around. Here’s a trailer for the film. ~~~ Saturday I’ll be attending what’s called a Zazenkai, or a morning of Zen sitting, meditation in Haiku. Then, later in the day, I’ll be going to a party in lower Kula, for a dinner and dance party, more about that later. ~~~ I’ll meet you back here early Saturday morning with the next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Friday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: There is water on the Moon, scientists stated unequivocally on Friday, and considerable amounts of it. “Indeed yes, we found water,” Anthony Colaprete, the principal investigator for NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, said in a news conference. The confirmation of scientists’ suspicions is welcome news both to future explorers who might set up home on the lunar surface and to scientists who hope that the water, in the form of ice accumulated over billions of years, could hold a record of the solar system’s history.

The satellite, known as Lcross (pronounced L-cross), slammed into a crater near the Moon’s south pole a month ago. The impact carved out a hole 60- to 100-feet wide and kicked up at least 24 gallons of water. “We got more than just whiff,” said Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator of the mission. “We practically tasted it with the impact.”

For more than a decade, planetary scientists have seen tantalizing hints of water ice at the bottom of these cold craters where the sun never shines. The Lcross mission consisted of two pieces — an empty rocket stage to carve into the lunar surface and a small spacecraft to measure what was kicked up, but it too slammed into the surface.

For space enthusiasts who stayed up, or woke up early, to watch the impact on Oct. 9, the event was anticlimactic, even disappointing, as they failed to see the anticipated debris plume. But NASA later said that a plume was indeed photographed; the live video stream was not properly attuned to pick out the details. The water findings come from analysis of the slight shifts in color after the impact, showing telltale signs of water.

Interesting2: Is there such a thing as "weather" on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet’s atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms. Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, was recently awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather. Mars is the most Earth-like planet we know, but it is still quite different. For example, it is much colder on Mars.

The south pole of the Earth is covered by water ice, but the south pole of Mars wears a dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) cap. In winter, the temperature at the poles can dip to -220 degrees Fahrenheit, which is so cold that even carbon dioxide freezes. "Planet-encircling Martian dust storms, which occur every two to four Mars years, can cover the whole planet with dust for months," notes Szunyogh, who is working with colleagues from the University of Maryland and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., to forecast Martian weather.

Why care about weather on Mars? After all, nobody lives, works or goes to school there. "Martian weather forecasts, in the short term, can drastically increase the safety of landing robotic exploration missions," comments colleague Mark Lemmon, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences who has led or participated in many Mars exploratory events. "In the long run, it is indispensible for the safe returning of astronauts in future manned explorations.

"The two rovers currently working on Mars are solar-powered, and their lives end when their batteries run out," Lemmon adds. "Dust storms block the sun and shorten their battery life, and winds, on the other hand, can clear their solar panels so their batteries recharge faster." Weather forecasting is not tossing dice. It must build on solid data.

"All weather forecasts, including those on TV, are based on model forecasts of the different physical parameters of the Earth’s atmosphere such as temperature, wind and pressure," Szunyogh says. "The main goal of our project is to explore the possibility of obtaining accurate quantitative estimates of these parameters of the Martian atmosphere. "These parameters will be obtained from the available remotely sensed Martian observations," he adds. "Then the data can be fed into Mars global circulation models, producing Martian weather forecasts like what we have for Earth."

Interesting3: Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb. "Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States," says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting."

The study, by authors at NCAR, Climate Central, The Weather Channel, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor, the Department of Energy, and Climate Central.

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

A record daily high means that temperatures were warmer on a given day than on that same date throughout a weather station’s history. The authors used a quality control process to ensure the reliability of data from thousands of weather stations across the country, while looking at data over the past six decades to capture longer-term trends. This decade’s warming was more pronounced in the western United States, where the ratio was more than two to one, than in the eastern United States, where the ratio was about one-and-a-half to one.

The study also found that the two-to-one ratio across the country as a whole could be attributed more to a comparatively small number of record lows than to a large number of record highs. This indicates that much of the nation’s warming is occurring at night, when temperatures are dipping less often to record lows. This finding is consistent with years of climate model research showing that higher overnight lows should be expected with climate change.

Interesting4: Volcanic eruptions were responsible for a deadly ice age 450 million years ago, as well as — in an ironic twist — a period of global warming that preceded it, a new study finds. The finding underscores the importance of carbon in Earth’s climate today, said study researcher Matthew Saltzman of Ohio State University. The ancient ice age featured glaciers that covered the South Pole on top of the supercontinent of Gondwana (which would eventually break apart to form the present-day continents of the southern hemisphere).

Two-thirds of all species perished in the frigid climate. Previously, Saltzman and his team linked this same ice age, which took place in the Ordovician period, to the rise of the Appalachian Mountains. As the exposed rock weathered, chemical reactions pulled carbon from Earth’s atmosphere, causing the deadly global cooling.

With models, the researchers have now pieced together the other half of the story: Giant volcanoes that formed during the closing of the proto-Atlantic Ocean — known as the Iapetus Ocean — set the stage for the rise of the Appalachians and the ice age that followed. "Our model shows that these Atlantic volcanoes were spewing carbon into the atmosphere at the same time the Appalachians were removing it," Saltzman said.

"For nearly 10 million years, the climate was at a stalemate. Then the eruptions abruptly stopped, and atmospheric carbon levels fell well below what they were in the time before volcanism. That kicked off the ice age." To figure out this geologic history, Saltzman and his colleagues used computer models to draw together measurements of isotopes of chemical elements from rocks in Nevada, Virginia and Pennsylvania with measurements of volcanic ash beds in the same locations.

They also factored in temperature models developed by other scientists. The ash deposits demonstrated when the volcanoes stopped erupting, and the isotope measurements pinpointed the Appalachians as the source of the volcanic rock. The new findings mesh well with what scientists know about these ancient proto-Atlantic volcanoes, which are thought to have produced the largest eruptions in Earth’s history.

They issued enough lava to form the Appalachians, enough ash to cover the far ends of the earth, and enough carbon to heat the globe. Atmospheric carbon levels grew to levels 20 times higher than they are today. This study shows that when those volcanoes stopped erupting, carbon levels dropped, and the climate swung dramatically back to cold. The timing coincides with today’s best estimates of temperature fluctuations in the Ordovician.

Interesting5: Tiny particles of pollution that are harmful to human health stick to tree leaves and leave a trace magnetism, a new study finds. More pollution is found stuck to leaves of trees near busy roadways than those in less trafficked areas. The pollution-trapping leaves could serve as an easy, inexpensive way to monitor pollutant levels, researchers say.

Scientists in Europe first noticed that a type of pollution called particulate matter was sticking to leaves in industrial areas. Particulate matter is created by the combustion of fuel and can include many different compounds. The ones these scientists detected were metallic pollutants — such as iron oxides from diesel exhaust — that left a magnetic trace on the leaves (though the leaves themselves don’t become magnets).

The bumpy, wavy surfaces on the leaves easily trap the floating particles of pollution, which either remain stuck to the leaves surface or can even grow right into the leaf. The leaves are "pretty efficient particle collectors," said geophysicist Bernie Housen, of Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash. Housen set out to see if this magnetic pollution could be detected on Bellingham’s leaves as well, and if there was a different between leaves of trees in busy city areas than in more rural ones.

Housen and his colleague Luigi Jovane collected several leaves from 15 Bigleaf Maple trees (Acer macrophyllum) in and around Bellingham in late June. Five of the trees were next to roads with busy bus routes; five sat on parallel, but quieter streets; five were in a nearby rural area. The leaves along the bus routes showed two to eight times more magnetism than those from the nearby quieter streets and four to 10 times more magnetism than leaves from rural areas.

The findings, presented last weekend at the meeting of the Geological Society of America, suggest that leaves could act as a simple, cost effective way to monitor pollution, Housen said. Monitoring particulate matter is important because of the danger it poses to human health. The tinier the particles are, the deeper they can penetrate into lungs, with consequences to health that include breathing and heart problems.