Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / February 18-19, 2010

February 18-19, 2010

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

Lihue, Kauai – 73
Honolulu, Oahu – 76
Kaneohe, Oahu – 75
Kaunakakai, Molokai – 74
Kahului, Maui – 76
Hilo, Hawaii – 75
Kailua-kona – 80

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

Honolulu, Oahu – 79F
Hilo, Hawaii – 67

Haleakala Crater –    48 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 36 (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 Thursday afternoon:

0.06 Mount Waialaele, Kauai  
0.04 Waimanalo, Oahu
0.00 Molokai 
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.03 Puu Kukui, Maui 
0.08 Honokaa, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1023 millibar high pressure system to the northwest…along with its associated ridge moving eastward into the area north of Kauai. This pressure configuration will bring the NE winds around to the ENE and east 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

Kauai Art…Pierre Bouret

A dry and stable air mass over the islands will limit rainfall through the weekend…into early next week. 



The leeward sides will be in good shape, with quite a bit of daytime sunshine, along with little if any rainfall. The windward sides will find a few showers falling at times, although even there…nothing significant is expected. This IR satellite image shows the rather extensive low stratocumulus clouds, which are covering most of the windward areas…and well upstream from there. These clouds will diminish some during the day, although usually increase again during the night. If we look at an even larger view of the central Pacific, using this IR satellite picture, we can see a vast area of high cirrus clouds to our south. These cirrus clouds are associated with a large area of disturbed weather in the deeper tropics, far to Hawaii’s south. This area of thunderstorms is traveling eastward, with a low chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.

The trade winds will be blowing in the light to moderately strong range, gradually becoming lighter later this weekend…into early next week.  These trade winds will ensure pleasant weather conditions over our tropical latitudes. If we check out this weather map, we see a



1025 millibar high pressure system located to the northwest of Kauai. This high pressure cell has a ridge of high pressure extending eastward…to the north of Kauai. This high and ridge is the source of our trade winds now. Our winds will become lighter from the southeast later this weekend into early next week…ahead of the next cold front around next Wednesday. We may begin to see some volcanic haze drifting up over parts of the island chain by Sunday. The lighter winds from there through into the new week, will likely cause some afternoon clouds, and a few light showers in the upcountry areas. The next cold front will arrive with some showers around the middle of next week…followed by chilly north to northeast winds again.

It’s Thursday evening, as I begin writing the last section of today’s narrative.  As noted in the paragraphs above, our weather will be nice, and finally beginning to warm up later Friday into the weekend. The dew point temperatures are still in the 50F’s this evening, with air temperatures, despite their being the 60’s and 70’s…feeling cooler than that in some cases. This is true especially where the wind chill factor is still in place, with the locally gusty breezes from the northeast still blowing. The air mass over the islands remains very dry and stable, which simply means that any rainfall will be restricted to the windward sides, and what little bit of that…generally falling during the night and early morning hours. A friend here in Kihei has invited me for a freshly made pizza pie dinner, so I’ll be getting home to Kula after dark for a change. I’ll still have plenty of time to get to bed before 9pm though, in order to get enough sleep, before my alarm goes off at 430am Friday morning. I hope you have a great Thursday night, and can join me here again on Friday! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Extra: Cruise ship in very rough seas.

Interesting: Overuse of nitrogen fertilizers in China is leading to rapid soil acidification and is causing lasting damage to ecosystems, according to soil study. Nitrogen fertilizers used to increase crop yields in China are having "extreme" environmental consequences, according to a study from leading soil scientists.

Scientists from China, the UK and the United States measured the pH of soil samples taken from agricultural land across China in the 1980s and 2000s and found widespread acidification caused by nitrogen fertilizers. On average, the pH of soil across the country had decreased by 0.5 in 20 years.

In parts of Hunan province, in south China, the pH of the soil had dropped to between 3 and 4. Most crops are suited to a neutral range between pH 6 and pH 8.

Interesting2: A five-year research project has come up with a way of generating green energy from a humble everyday grass. Researchers at Teesside University’s Contaminated Land and Water Centre began the project in 2004 to see which plants could best be grown on brownfield sites as a way of improving unsightly blots on the landscape.

Now, the research by the BioReGen (Biomass, Remediation, re-Generation) project team has revealed that reed canary grass can be turned into an excellent fuel for biomass power stations and, on a smaller scale, boilers in buildings like schools. The native British grass is turned into bricks and pellets. These not only burn well but also don’t add to greenhouse gases or contribute to global warming.

The team experimented with four types of plant, willow trees, the current favorite for biomass power stations, and the miscanthus, reed canary and switch grasses. Tests were carried out on sites around the region with work supported by a 1.2m Euros grant from the European Union’s LIFE-Environment research program.

Dr Richard Lord, Reader in Environmental Geochemistry and Sustainability, said: "We have narrowed the plants down to reed canary grass because it grows well on poor soils and contaminated industrial sites.

That is significant because in areas like Teesside, and many similar ones around the country, there are a lot of marginal or brownfield sites on which reed canary grass can be grown. "Selecting such sites means that the grass can be grown without taking away land which would otherwise be used in food production, a key concern for those involved in the biomass and biofuel sectors."

Having reached maturity, which takes two years, reed canary grass is harvested and baled up before being turned into bricks and pellets. Dr Lord said: "The test burnings have shown that reed canary grass produces a good, clean fuel without picking-up contamination from the soil.

"Reed canary grass has great potential because it offers a suitable use for unsightly brownfield sites while producing an excellent fuel at a time when the world is crying out for new ways of producing green energy.

"Our research also suggests that the end product is improved soil quality and biodiversity at the greened-up sites. "We are now examining ways in which we can commercialize this idea and are already talking to a number of major biomass power station operators."

Interesting3: A heat wave is a prolonged period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity. There is no universal definition of a heat wave. One of the longest heat waves on record was the one at Marble Bar in Australia, where from October 31, 1923 to April 7, 1924 the temperature broke the 100.0 °F benchmark (160 days).

An example of a recent heat wave in the Balkans happened in June 2008. A period of extremely warm temperatures started and lasted three weeks. Temperatures stayed over or around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). To make the situation even more difficult for the population, this period was also marked by tropical nights where temperatures stayed above 20 or even 30 degrees Celsius overnight.

In a recent study it was found that there were significant heat wave or temperature changes across the western Balkans, southwestern and western Turkey, and along the southern Black Sea coastline. Since the 1960s, the mean heat wave intensity, heat wave length and heat wave number across the eastern Mediterranean region have increased by about a factor of 7.6, 7.5 and 6.2 respectively. These findings suggest that the heat wave increase in this region is higher than previously reported.

Interesting4: A study by scientists from the U.S.’s National Climatic Data Center refutes claims from climate change skeptics that data from U.S. weather stations was seriously flawed and exaggerated the rate of temperature increases. The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, says that U.S. weather stations may have actually slightly underestimated temperature increases.

Anthony Watts, a former meteorologist who publishes the WattsUpWithThat blog, compiled photo evidence of what he considered poorly located weather stations across the U.S., including locations that could be influenced by artificial heat, such as those near parking lots and air conditioning systems. Watts concluded that the U.S. records were unreliable, and thus called into question the data used in climate research worldwide.

But scientists at the National Climatic Data Center suggest that the data collected at the stations Watts classified as poor were actually more likely to be cooler since they generally used sophisticated measuring equipment known as a Maximum-Minimum Temperature System (MMTS), which tends to be biased toward marginally cooler readings. The Balkans are located in south east Europe.

A new data set of high quality daily maximum and minimum summer air temperature series from 246 stations in the eastern Mediterranean region (including Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey) has been developed and used to quantify changes in heat length and intensity between 1960 and 2006. Daily temperature analyses suggest that many instrumental measurements in the 1960s are warm biased, correcting for these biases regionally averaged heat wave trends are up to 8% higher.