Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / January 15-16, 2010

January 15-16, 2010

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

Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 77
Kaunakakai, Molokai – 78
Kahului, Maui – 80
Hilo, Hawaii – 78
Kailua-kona – 82

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

Honolulu, Oahu – 77F
Kapalua, Maui – 73

Haleakala Crater –    61 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 43 (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:

0.01 Mount Waialaele, Kauai  
0.00 Oahu
0.00 Molokai 
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.00 Maui 
0.01 Honaunau, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a high pressure system to the northeast of the islands, with a weak ridge of high pressure extending southwest into the area north of Hawaii. Our winds will be trade winds, but will remain on the light side for the most part.

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

  More extra large surf on Sunday…north and west shores

A dry and stable air mass has taken control over the Hawaiian Islands as we move into the long…three day Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. There will be thin stratified clouds along the windward sides, while the trade winds blow, but rainfall will be minimal at best. The leeward beaches will be exceptionally nice. As the winds swing around to a more customary ENE and easterly direction now, our air temperatures will become warmer as we move forward. Looking a bit further ahead, the trade winds will pick up next week, and become light to moderately strong and gusty by mid-week. A modest increase in windward biased showers often accompanies such a surge in the trade wind speeds. Even further out into the future, the computer forecast models are showing a period of unsettled weather arriving next weekend, which may, hopefully…bring some much needed precipitation to our dry Aloha state then.

The surf along our north and west facing beaches has been larger than normal lately…although will be lowering today into Saturday. These large high surf episodes have been tracking our way at least a couple of times per week. There should be a continued reduction in the size of these waves today, lasting through the better part of Saturday. If we consult with this latest weather map, we see a huge and very deep storm far to our northwest. This storm weighed-in at a pretty remarkable 948 millibars yesterday, but has filled slightly to 956 millibars Friday evening. This storm had hurricane force winds revolving around its center Thursday, which generated very large swells. Thus, we have another round of extra large to near giant surf heading our way now. The details of this next big northwest swell, has the forerunners arriving on Kauai’s north and west facing shores later in the day tomorrow. It will work its way down through the island chain Saturday night into Sunday, lasting for several days. This very large NW swell will trigger a high surf warning, which demands caution when getting near these shores…for even the expert water persons among us.

It’s Friday evening, as I begin writing the last section of today’s narrative. It was chilly yesterday, and down right cold, tropically speaking…Thursday night into Friday morning. The winds have shifted just enough now, that the cool snap has eased up some. Friday night into Saturday morning will be a cool one, although overnight temperatures won’t take such a deep nose dive down the thermometer dial. I would recommend leaving that extra blanket on the bed for one more night though, and then tuck it back into the closest again later this weekend. Our weather is going to be choice Saturday and Sunday into Monday, although, as noted above, watch out for that very larger high surf along our north and west shores later this weekend. The days will be warm at sea level, with even the upcountry areas warming several more degrees too. As we move into the holiday on Monday, and even for several more days after that, conditions look favorably inclined from here. The trade winds will pick up strength as we move into the middle of the new week for a couple of days. Then, as we progress towards next weekend, we’ll see some changes in our weather reality, as our winds veer around to the Kona direction…ahead of what looks to be a pretty potent rainfall event next weekend. ~~~ I’m just getting ready to leave Kihei, for a drive over to the windward side…to Kuau near Paia town. Some new friends have invited me to dinner, along with some other of my friends that live nearby. We’ll check out the sunset, if I get there in time, while sipping on a glass of wine. Then, the plan is to throw some fresh fish on the bbq, and have some fun eating dinner together, and rapping about this and that. I’m looking forward to this experience, as these folks live right on the ocean! ~~~ I’ll be back Saturday morning with your next new weather narrative update. I hope you have a great Friday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.  

Extra: You folks in the western United States, and especially California, should be ready to hunker down at times during the next week and more, as wet and windy weather…to very wet and very windy conditions should bring potentially heavy flooding conditions, with tons of snow in the mountains – be prepared!

Interesting: Earthquake experts are warning that the devastating quake that struck Haiti on Tuesday could be the first of several in the region. They say historical records suggest that not all the energy that has built up in the faults running through the Caribbean region was released in this week’s tragedy.

Their fear is that enough energy remains in the fault system to trigger another earthquake of the same scale as Tuesday’s. The last time Haiti was struck by earthquakes of this scale was in 1751 and 1770, when three large earthquakes hit within the space of 20 years.

They ruptured the same fault segment as the one that slipped on Tuesday, as well as segments lying further to the east, in Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic. "Last time round there was a sequence of earthquakes," says Uri ten Brink, an expert on earthquakes in the region from the US Geological Survey in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

"I’m worried, as we might expect the eastern side of the fault to rupture next." Other geologists concur. "Stress transfer along the fault is likely to trigger a chain of quakes," says Bill McGuire from University College London. Another, larger earthquake could affect surrounding nations as well.

The fault that was responsible for Tuesday’s quake extends west through Jamaica. Another runs parallel to it in the north, along the southern edge of Cuba and the northern side of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Historical records suggest that both these faults produce large and destructive earthquakes every few centuries.

"They are dangerous especially when large population centers like Port-au-Prince, Kingston in Jamaica or Santiago in the Dominican Republic are so close to them," says Paul Mann from the University of Texas at Austin, who published a paper in 2008 that forecast a major quake in the region.

The region harbors a third fault to the east, which is a further cause for concern. Unlike the others it lies underwater, where the Atlantic Ocean plate dives underneath the Caribbean plate, creating the Caribbean island chain: it is a submarine thrust fault, like the one that caused the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 26 December 2004.

Satellite measurements show that the Caribbean plate is moving east over the Atlantic plate at around 2 centimeters per year. Measurements over several decades show that the sum of all earthquakes that strike on "splinter faults" on the Caribbean plate, like Tuesday’s, have accounted for around half of the energy associated with this movement, leaving the other half stored up in the system.

Some of the remainder may be accommodated by slow creep along the region’s faults, but McGuire and his colleagues are concerned that much of the stress may be accumulating on the undersea thrust fault to the east. If that stress were to be released on the submarine fault, it could trigger a catastrophic tsunami of the scale of the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean disaster.

McGuire released a report warning of this danger in 2008 (PDF). Along with the entire Caribbean, Central America, the Gulf coast of the US and the north coast of South America would be at risk from such a tsunami. In particular, geological measurements indicate that stress is building in the section of submarine fault between easternmost Dominican Republic and the island of Guadeloupe.

Large earthquakes of magnitude 8.5 to 9.0 could rupture the entire 1000-kilometre length of the fault, McGuire and his colleagues wrote in their report. From the amount of energy being accumulated by subduction, McGuire and his colleagues estimate that undersea thrust earthquakes could recur every 2000 years or so.

Unfortunately, high rates of natural erosion in the region have long since wiped away the geological signs of the last earthquake along this submarine fault. We know from historical records that there has not been a quake along the fault in 500 years, but the next one could be within the century, or within the next millennium.

"We don’t want to scaremonger, but much larger quakes, of magnitude 8 or more, have occurred in this region and will do so again," says McGuire. "Where they are submarine they will present a major tsunami threat, especially as this is such a small area compared with the Indian Ocean."

Interesting2: LiveScience As disaster crews and scientists investigate the havoc wrought in Haiti, questions emerge as to whether such a vastly destructive disaster could happen at home in the United States. In fact, cities are located near dangerous earthquake zones all throughout the country, from the most infamous on the West Coast to potential time bombs in the Midwest and even on the Eastern Seaboard.

The Pacific Northwest

Stretching from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to northern California is the Cascadia subduction zone, where one giant plate of the Earth’s surface is diving deep beneath another one. "The very largest earthquakes all occur on subduction zones," said seismologist Geoffrey Abers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York.

"These are also the faults that make very large tsunamis that propagate across ocean basins to cause a lot of damage." These "megathrust earthquakes" that threaten Seattle, Portland and Vancouver can be magnitude 9 or greater, geological records reveal.

The area hasn’t really seen any significant seismic activity since instruments began observations roughly a century ago, "but that’s a fairly short period of time, and the system’s accumulating strain," Abers said.

Other faults — cracks in the planet’s surface — might lead to smaller earthquakes, "but if they’re near population centers, they can cause a lot more damage," Abers noted. "The Seattle Fault runs right through downtown Seattle." "Compared to Haiti, probably the most important difference between the U.S. are the building codes and building designs," Abers said.

"The level of strong ground shaking we saw in Port-au-Prince was largely devastating because of the unreinforced masonry there and the shantytowns on unreinforced slopes. In the U.S., we’d always see some damage, but we’d expect to see less loss of life because the building codes are strong in California and somewhat strong in the Pacific Northwest."

California

The most well-known earthquake zone in the United States is the San Andreas Fault, where the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate are sliding past each other, running along heavily populated areas of California.

Still, other fractures in the earth threaten the state as well, such as the Hayward Fault that lies mainly on the east side of San Francisco Bay, and previously unknown fault that caused the 1994 Northridge quake.

"The biggest earthquakes we have any evidence for in California are magnitude 8," Abers said. In California, the faults are very well studied, and the state is very well prepared. That’s not to say the risk is small. Geologists expect the Los Angeles area will eventually be struck by an earthquake larger than any seen in recorded history.

The Midwest

Three of the largest earthquakes in North America recorded in history originated from the New Madrid fault system over the course of two months from 1811 to 1812. These magnitude 7 events shook with enough power to apparently force the Mississippi River to temporarily flow backward.

The quakes — the largest ones ever known in the center of the United States — have raised fears of a "big one" there sometime this century. The closest cities to the New Madrid fault system are Memphis and St. Louis.

"Fundamentally we don’t have a good understanding of exactly how earthquakes in the middle of continents work," Abers said. "We understand a lot about tectonic plates at their boundaries — when it comes to the middle of plates, the thought is that somehow the movement of plates also builds up stresses in the middle of continents.

If we can solve this, we could establish a better idea of what hazards earthquakes pose there." A dense array of seismic instruments is now investigating the zone, and scientists are looking for evidence of ancient earthquakes to get a better sense of how it works. The

Eastern Seaboard

The ancient Ramapo Fault runs near New York City. It last experienced serious movement some 200 million years ago, "with mountains going up and volcanoes erupting in the area," Abers said. "It’s thought it might be where stresses are building up today." A number of other ancient faults go from Canada all the way at least to South Carolina.

The largest earthquake in the northeast was probably the Cape Ann earthquake in 1755 off the coast of Massachusetts, which might have been a magnitude 5.9 quake. "There’s clearly much less activity on the Eastern Seaboard than in California or the Pacific Northwest, but the flip side of that is that the building codes aren’t of the same standard," Abers said.

"So even modest-sized earthquakes close to populated areas could be much more destructive. There are a lot of emergency preparedness groups in California, a lot of work on building codes and designs, but building to earthquake codes is expensive, and in the east there are older buildings built before people thought very hard about earthquakes. Buildings cause 80 percent of deaths in earthquakes from structure collapse."

"The ground in the East also propagates shaking much more efficiently, so earthquakes would affect a much bigger area," he explained. "In the west, the crust is much more busted up, so the seismic waves attenuate — the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake felt in Southern California but not Northern California. In the east the ground has hardened for millions and millions of years, so I felt shaking in Boston from a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in central Quebec that was 500 miles from where I was sitting."

Alaska

Alaska experiences the most earthquakes in the United States, more per year than the combined total of the rest of the country. The nation’s largest recorded earthquakes have all happened there as well. "The last big earthquake in 1964 there was the largest ever recorded in the United States at magnitude 9.2," Abers said.

"It destroyed several towns and it heavily damaged Anchorage. The risk of tsunami is high for coastal areas as well." The Alaskan-Aleutian megathrust is a subduction zone "much bigger than in Cascadia," Abers said.

"The saving grace in Alaska is that the population density is much lower than in California and the Pacific Northwest, but the population of the state has increased dramatically, and there’s infrastructure there such as the Alaska Pipeline that wasn’t there in 1964."

There is seismic monitoring in the state, particularly the urban areas, "but there’s large parts of Alaska that are not that well-studied — magnitude 4 earthquakes go undetected all the time in some of these places," Abers said. "There’s just a lot of real estate to cover."