Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / February 23-24, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   80
Honolulu airport, Oahu –     81
Kaneohe, Oahu –               78
Molokai airport –                81
Kahului airport, Maui –        81
Kona airport –                      82
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          75

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Wednesday evening:

Port Allen, Kauai – 81F
Lihue, Kauai – 74

Haleakala Crater –     missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 30 (under 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 Wednesday evening:

0.54 Mount Waialaelae, Kauai  
1.71 Ahuimanu Loop, Oahu
0.00 Molokai 
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
1.22 West Wailuaiki, Maui
1.27 Ahumoa, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1033 millibar high pressure system to our northeast…with a ridge extending down just to the northeast of the islands. At the same time we find low pressure to our north…with a cold front just to our northwest. Our winds will be generally light, although stronger locally through Friday. 

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 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 web cam 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 web cams 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. Of course, as we know, our hurricane season ends November 30th here in the central Pacific.

 Aloha Paragraphs

Locally heavy rain…into Friday morning
Flash flood watch all islands
Hail fell on Oahu this afternoon! 
Thunderstorms galore Wednesday night

Variable winds through the rest of the week…with possible trade winds returning after the weekend. A 1033 millibar high pressure system is located to our northeast…with a ridge extending down just to the northeast of the islands. At the same time we find a low pressure center to our north…with its associated cold front just to our northwest. Our winds will be generally light, although stronger locally at times through Thursday. There's a chance we could see the trade winds returning by early next week.

Winds will be generally light, although locally stronger…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Wednesday evening:

07 mph       Lihue, Kauai – ENE
23                Kaneohe, Oahu 
05              Molokai – NW
17              Kahoolawe – ESE
13              Kahului, Maui – ENE
00              Lanai Airport
20              South Point, Big Island – NE

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Wednesday afternoon. This large University of Washington satellite image shows a swirling upper level low pressure system to the northwest of the islands…with lots of heavy rain producing clouds in the vicinity. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture, we see partly to mostly cloudy conditions around the state…with thunderstorms noted over the ocean in almost all directions. We can use this looping satellite image to see thunderstorms and heavy rain moving over the state at times. Checking out this looping radar image, it shows lots of moderate or heavier showers over the ocean offshore from the islands, along with some locally heavy showers or thunderstorms over the islands at the time of this writing.

Hawaii remains under an unsettled weather pattern with rain, some of which will be heavy into early Friday…along with a good chance of thunderstorms. The NWS office is keeping the flash flood watch up Wednesday night through early Friday. This has lead to flash flood warnings during the day Wednesday on several of the islands. This is something that we should all be paying close attention to, as it could become rather serious…especially in terms of driving with lots of water on our roadways. At the same time, there's a winter storm warning for snow and ice atop the tall summits on the Big Island. There's still some uncertainty about when this inclement weather will end, although it looks like the heaviest showers may end on Friday…with afternoon convective showers, some of which may still locally heavy over the interior sections through Sunday.

~~~ Here in Kihei, Maui at around 520pm Wednesday evening, skies were mostly cloudy.  Tthe islands of Oahu, Molokai, and Maui have had periods of localized heavy rains at times Wednesday. I'll keep this looping radar image handy, so we can easily access it when the heavy rainfall occurs into Thursday. I'm going to also show this webcam view of the Mauna Kea summit on the Big Island, so we can keep track of the snow that will be falling up there. It would wise to expect heavy showers through Thursday, and as a result, please drive very carefully, and keep an umbrella close at hand perhaps too. I wouldn't be surprised to see lightning and hear thunder claps over the next day or two…which is relatively unusual. I must say, that we've had more thunderstorms this winter than I can remember in a long time. I'll be back early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: University of Pittsburgh-led researchers extracted a 6,000-year climate record from a Washington lake that shows that the famously rain-soaked American Pacific Northwest could not only be in for longer dry seasons, but also is unlikely to see a period as wet as the 20th century any time soon. In a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team linked the longer dry spells to the intensifying El Niño/La Niña climate pattern and concluded that Western states will likely suffer severe water shortages as El Niño/La Niña wields greater influence on the region.

The researchers analyzed a sediment core from Castor Lake in north central Washington to plot the region's drought history since around 4,000 BCE and found that wet and dry cycles during the past millennium have grown longer. The team attributed this recent deviation to the irregular pressure and temperature changes brought on by El Niño/La Niña. At the same time, they reported, the wet cycle stretching from the 1940s to approximately 2000 was the dampest in 350 years.

Lead researcher Mark Abbott, a Pitt professor of geology and planetary science, said those unusually wet years coincide with the period when western U.S. states developed water-use policies. "Western states happened to build dams and water systems during a period that was unusually wet compared to the past 6,000 years," he said. "Now the cycle has changed and is trending drier, which is actually normal. It will shift back to wet eventually, but probably not to the extremes seen during most of the 20th century."

Abbott worked with his former graduate student, lead author and Pitt alumnus Daniel Nelson, as well as Pitt professor of geology and planetary science Michael Rosenmeier; Nathan Stansell, a Pitt PhD graduate now a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University; and Pitt geology and planetary science graduate student Byron Steinman.

The team also included Pratigya Polissar, an assistant research professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; Joseph Ortiz, associate professor of geology at Kent State University; Bruce Finney, a professor of geology at Idaho State University; and Jon Riedel, a geologist at North Cascades National Park in Washington.

The team produced a climate record from the lake mud by measuring the oxygen isotope ratios of the mineral calcite that precipitates from the lake water every summer and builds up in fine layers on the lake floor. More calcite accumulates in wet years than in dry years. They reproduced their findings by measuring grayscale, or the color of mud based on calcite concentration, with darker mud signifying a drier year.

The record in the sediment core was then compared to the Palmer Drought Severity Index, which uses meteorological and tree-ring data to determine drought cycles dating back 1,500 years, Abbott explained. The Castor Lake core matched the Palmer Index reconstructed with tree-ring data and expanded on it by 4,500 years, suggesting that lakebeds are better records of long-term climate change, the authors contend.

Analysis of the sediment core revealed that the climate of the Pacific Northwest fluctuated more or less evenly between wet and dry periods for thousands of years, the researchers wrote. Droughts tended to be lengthier with 25 percent of dry periods during the past 6,000 years persisting for 30 years or more and the longest lingering for around 75 years. Wet periods tended to be shorter with only 19 percent lasting more than 30 years and the longest spanning 64 years.

But since around 1000 AD, these periods have become longer, shifted less frequently, and, most importantly, ushered in more extreme conditions, Abbott said. The two driest cycles the researchers detected out of the past 6,000 years occurred within only 400 years of each other — the first in the 1500s and the second during the Great Depression. Wet periods showed a similar pattern shift with five very wet eras crammed into the past 900 years. The wettest cycle of the past 6,000 years began around the 1650s, and the second most sodden began a mere 300 years later, in the 1940s.

The change in cycle regularity Abbott and his colleagues found correlates with documented activity of El Niño/La Niña. When the patterns became more intense, wet and dry cycles in the Pacific Northwest became more erratic and lasted longer, Abbott said.

Interesting2: Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia has seen the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and the view wasn't pretty. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Joye told the conference that she found places where oil lay on the Gulf floor nearly 4 inches thick.

Joye's findings contradict rosier pictures of the overall damage caused by the 2010 BP oil spill, including a recent statement by Kenneth Feinberg, the US government czar for oil compensation, that the Gulf would largely recover by next year.

Employing a deep-diving submersible dubbed Alvin, Joye undertook five expeditions over 2,600 square miles of the Gulf's floor. She used chemical analysis to identify that the oil on the floor was indeed from the BP Macondo well that blew out last April. Having studied many of the locations before, Joye said the oil spill had a noticeable impact.

"Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans—all of those were substantially impacted—and by impacted, I mean essentially killed," she told the BBC. She took photos and video of and the oil-choked bodies of marine life, such as crabs, corals, brittle stars, and tube-worms.

Instead of the Gulf recovering by 2012, Joye told the BBC, it will probably take that long to really understand the full impact of the spill, including on important fisheries in the region, as fish are ecologically dependent on many benthic species.

According to Joye only about 10% of the oil was consumed by microbes, complicating the narrative that microbes had consumed most of the oil already.

Interesting3: Maersk Line, the world's largest container ship operator, is building a fleet of the world's largest container vessels—a deal that includes 10 firm orders and another 20 on option for a total potential cost of $5.7 billion—to transport freight in the Asia-Europe trade.

The Danish company is calling these behemoths—each capable of carrying the equivalent of 18,000 twenty-foot containers—the Triple-E. That’s for economy of scale, energy efficiency and environmentally improved.

The latter item is a major marketing point, especially for shippers with sustainability and environmental commitments in mind for their products and supply chains. Maersk contends that the ships will bring significant environmental improvements in terms of reduced emissions to the shipping table; kind of a more is less approach.

The company claims the vessels will produce "the lowest possible amount of CO2 emissions — an astonishing 50 percent less CO2 per container moved than the industry average on the Asia—Europe trade."

"International trade will continue to play a key role in the development of the global economy; but, for the health of the planet, we must continue to reduce our CO2 emissions," says Maersk Line CEO Eivind Kolding.

Emission reductions are "not only a top priority for us, but also for our customers, who depend on us in their supply chain, and also for a growing number of consumers who base their purchasing decisions on this type of information," he continues.

Interesting4: Globally warmer seas, rising carbon dioxide emissions and local factors like over-fishing have pushed the threat level on the world's coral reefs into the danger zone, environmental advocates said on Wednesday. More than 75 percent of all reefs — which harbor fish, attract tourists and shelter marine biodiversity — are currently threatened, the advocates from U.S. government and non-governmental organizations said in releasing a report, "Reefs at Risk Revisited."

"Mounting pressures on land, along the coast and in the water converge in a perfect storm of threats to reefs," Jane Lubchenco, administrator at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a briefing. "Since the last 'Reefs at Risk' report … threats have gone from worrisome to dire."

The last report, released in 1998, found nearly 60 percent of coral reefs were threatened by human activity.

More than 500 million people around the world depend on coral reefs for food and income; the report estimated coral reefs provide $30 billion a year in benefits.

The carbon dioxide emissions that fuel climate change also contribute to making oceans more acidic, which impedes coral formation. In addition, warmer sea surface temperatures cause damaging coral bleaching, the report said.

MOST REEFS AT RISK BY 2050

Local pressures include over-fishing, destructive fishing methods such as explosives or poison, pollution from farm chemical run-off, unchecked coastal development, ships that drag anchors and chains across the reefs and unsustainable tourism.

If these threats don't change, more than 90 percent of reefs will be at risk by 2030 and nearly all reefs will be at risk by 2050, according to the report, visible online at www.wri.org/reefs.

More than 275 million people live within 18 miles (30 km) of coral reefs. In more than 100 countries, coral reefs protect over 93,000 miles (150,000 km) of shorelines.

The report identified 27 nations — most in the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Indian oceans — that are socially and economically vulnerable if coral reefs are degraded or lost. Among those 27, the nine most vulnerable are Comoros, Fiji, Grenada, Haiti, Indonesia, Kiribati, Philippines, Tanzania and Vanuatu.

The three drivers of this national vulnerability are a high dependence on reefs, a high threat of exposure and a limited ability to adapt. The nine most vulnerable nations have all three.

Local efforts to curb over-fishing and protect reefs are a known part of the solution, while limiting climate-warming emissions is more challenging, the advocates said.

"It's pretty clear that reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, is absolutely necessary if we want any hope of preventing a lot of the dire situations that are presented in the report," Lubchenco said.