Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 79
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 78
Molokai airport – 72
Kahului airport, Maui – 74
Kona airport – 82
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 81
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Monday evening:
Port Allen, Kauai – 82F
Kaneohe, Oahu – 72
Haleakala Crater – missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 45 (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 Monday afternoon:
0.17 Wainiha, Kauai
0.14 Hakipuu Mauka, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.09 West Wailuaiki, Maui
3.06 Pahala, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems far to the northeast, and northwest of the islands. At the same time we find low pressure systems located to the north-northeast Hawaii. Our winds will become trade winds blowing through Wednesday.
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
Nice weather…returning trades
Artist: Alex Ross
Gradually returning trade winds through mid-week, then gusty south to southwest Kona winds…especially on the Kauai end of the island chain during the second half of the week. According to this weather map, we find high pressure systems located far to the northeast and northwest of the islands Monday afternoon. Our returning light trade winds will pick up soon, becoming light to moderately strong Tuesday and Wednesday. As a cold front reaches Kauai and Oahu during the second half of the week, we'll find stronger winds developing from the south and southwest directions ahead of it…gradually turning south to southeast during the weekend. Winds from this direction are of course infamous for bringing volcanic haze up from the Big Island vents, to the smaller islands.
Winds will be generally light to moderately strong, although locally stronger…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions early Monday evening:
31 mph Barking Sands, Kauai – NNE
28 Waianae, Oahu – NW
22 Molokai – NNE
07 Kahoolawe – NE
09 Kapalua, Maui – NNE
09 Lanai Airport – N
14 Kawaihae, Big Island – WSW
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Monday night. This large University of Washington satellite image shows a large swath of high clouds to the west through north, with other areas of clouds to the northeast to east. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture, we see generally partly cloudy skies, although there are low clouds to the north through northeast, which will likely bring a few showers to the windward sides at times. We can use this looping satellite image to see that plume of high clouds to our north, which are cascading southward across the state locally. We can also see those lower clouds approaching our windward sides. Checking out this looping radar image, it shows a few showers falling over the ocean, along with a few over the islands in places, especially the central islands…carried along in the northerly breezes.
The winds continue to come in generally from the north…as we head into Tuesday. These slightly cool breezes will gradually shift over to the northeast, and then east-northeast through the next several days. Our weather here in the islands will be very pleasant through mid-week. There will be some changes as we head towards the weekend however, although most of those changes will concentrate on the Kauai end of the chain for the most part. A cold front, with associated low pressure systems will trigger increasingly strong south to southwest Kona winds during the second half of the work week. The computer models still don't have a great handle on the exact details, although are suggesting that rain would arrive over Kauai and Oahu Thursday into Friday…which could continue into the weekend locally. Maui County and the Big Island could get into this wet weather picture with time too.
~~~ Here in Kihei, Maui at around 530pm Monday evening, skies were mostly clear, with a scattering of low clouds…and some nice looking streaks of high cirrus clouds too. The northerly breezes are blowing at at a pretty good clip, maybe light to almost moderate. These icy cirrus clouds will likely light up a nice pink color at sunset, and then again at sunrise Tuesday…if they're still around then. I'd say that Monday was a lovely day in most areas, with a repeat performance for Tuesday. There isn't a speck of volcanic haze around now, with none expected through most of the rest of this work week. I'll be back with you again early Tuesday morning, I hope you have a great Monday night until then! If you're up early in the morning, check out the crescent moon, with the bright planet shining brightly nearby. Aloha for now…Glenn.
Extra: Incredible solar flare video
Interesting: U.S. officials could not offer a firm date when deepwater permits to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico will be issued, as crude posted its highest weekly close in more than two years. "We are carefully and rigorously reviewing drilling plans," Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the offshore drilling regulator, said at a news conference. "I am quite confident we will again get to the point where we can begin issuing deepwater permits."
A drilling ban put in place after BP Plc's disastrous Macondo well blowout last year in the Gulf was lifted in October, but no new deepwater drilling permits have been approved yet. U.S. crude oil futures posted their highest weekly settlement in almost 2-1/2 years on Friday on supply disruptions due to the revolt in Libya. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told reporters the situation in Libya was "not changing at all what we are doing here" and the government felt no pressure to hurry its permitting process.
Bromwich and Salazar were in Houston to peruse a pair of rapid-response systems designed to stop or contain a future Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a requirement for companies under new U.S. drilling regulations. The systems developed by the Marine Well Containment Company, a $1 billion nonprofit partnership of oil majors that operate in the Gulf led by Exxon Mobil Corp, and Helix Solutions Energy Group Inc, an independent producer and well-intervention company.
Post-Macondo, deepwater oil and gas producers must show they can deploy such systems as required to get drilling permits approved by U.S. regulators to get permits approved.
Interesting2: A study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science details the first scientific research to successfully track a great hammerhead shark using satellite tag technology. Rosenstiel Schhol Research Assistant Professor Neil Hammershlag and colleagues tracked one of the nomadic sharks for 62 days to uncover its northeast journey from the coast of South Florida to the middle of the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey.
The straight line point-to-point distance of 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) represents a range extension for this species. The data also revealed the shark entering the Gulf Stream current and open-ocean waters of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. "This animal made an extraordinary large movement in a short amount of time," said Hammerschlag, director of the R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation Program at the UM Rosenstiel School.
"This single observation is a starting point, it shows we need to expand our efforts to learn more about them." The animal was likely following food, such as mahi-mahi and jacks, off the continental slope and into the Gulf Stream, according to the authors. This preliminary study is part of a larger effort by Hammerschlag to satellite track tropical sharks to identify hotspots — areas that are important for feeding, mating, and pupping — and to document their largely unknown migration routes.
In the last year, the R.J. Dunlap team has tagged the fins more than 50 large and environmentally threatened sharks in Florida and Bahamas, among them great hammerhead, bull and tiger sharks. The great hammerhead shark is listed as endangered in the northwest Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) due to a suspected population decline of nearly 50 percent over the last 10 years.
The shark is found in tropical waters worldwide and is under threat of extinction due to overfishing for its large fins, which are prized for shark fin soup, and from accidental bycatch from commercial fishing operations. "This study provides evidence that great hammerheads can migrate into international waters, where these sharks are vulnerable to illegal fishing," said Hammerschlag.
"By knowing the areas where they are vulnerable to exploitation we can help generate information useful for conservation and management of this species." DNA analysis of great hammerhead fins sold in the Asian shark fin market has shown that a large majority of the sharks came from Atlantic waters. The paper was published in the current issue of the journal Endangered Species Research.
Interesting3: While extreme weather conditions and unusually cold temperatures have gripped much of North America and Europe this winter, unusually warm temperatures farther north produced the lowest Arctic sea ice extent ever recorded for the month of January, according to NASA. Areas such as Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, and Davis Strait — which typically freeze over by late November — did not completely freeze until mid-January, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
And the Labrador Sea was also unusually ice-free. In this NASA graphic (left), based on satellite data, blue indicates open water, white illustrates high sea ice concentrations, and turquoise indicates loosely packed ice.
The yellow line indicates the average January sea ice extent from 1979 through 2000. Scientists say the bizarre weather may be the result of a shift in a climate pattern known as the Arctic Oscillation, which has led to frigid Arctic air pouring south across North America and Europe while regions in the Arctic have been unusually warm.
Interesting4: Drier conditions projected to result from climate change in the Southwest will likely reduce perennial vegetation cover and result in increased dust storm activity in the future, according to a new study by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California, Los Angeles. The research team examined climate, vegetation and soil measurements collected over a 20-year period in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in southeastern Utah.
Long-term data indicated that perennial vegetation in grasslands and some shrublands declined with temperature increases. The study then used these soil and vegetation measurements in a model to project future wind erosion. The findings strongly suggest that sustained drought conditions across the Southwest will accelerate loss of grasses and some shrubs and increase the likelihood of dust production on disturbed soil surfaces in the future.
However, the community of cyanobacteria, mosses and lichens that hold the soil together in many semiarid and arid environments — biological soil crusts — prevented wind erosion from occurring at most sites despite reductions in perennial vegetation. "Accelerated rates of dust emission from wind erosion have large implications for natural systems and human well-being, so developing a better understanding of how climate change may affect wind erosion in arid landscapes is an important and emerging area of research," said Seth Munson, a USGS ecologist and the study's lead author.
Dust carried by the wind has received recent attention because of its far-reaching effects, including the loss of nutrients and water-holding capacity from source landscapes, declines in agricultural productivity and health and safety concerns. Dust is also a contributing factor in speeding up the melting of snow, which affects the timing and magnitude of runoff into streams and rivers. Peak wind speeds in the Southwest during the study period generated high rates of sediment transport. Dust storms have been detected by USGS field instrumentation and satellite images.
Interesting5: NASA computer models reveal what a small, regional nuclear war in one part of the world would do to the global climate and environment. The results are grim. If 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, each as powerful as 15,000 tons of TNT, were exchanged in a war between two developing-world nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan, models show the resulting fires would send five million metric tons of black carbon into the upper troposphere – the lowest-altitude layer of the atmosphere.
There, the soot would absorb solar heat and rise like a hot-air balloon, reaching heights from which it would not easily settle back to the ground. In the shade of this carbon shield, Earth would cool. "The effects would [lead] to unprecedented climate change," said NASA physical scientist Luke Oman at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last week.
Oman's and his colleagues' models show that for two to three years after a regional nuclear war, average global temperatures would drop by at least 2.25 degrees F, and as much as 5.4 to 7.2 degrees F in the tropics, Europe, Asia and Alaska. But the reversal of the global warming trend wouldn't be a good thing.
"Our results suggest that agriculture could be severely impacted, especially in areas that are susceptible to late-spring and early-fall frosts," said Oman, who compared the likely post-war crop failures and famines to those that followed the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.
Additionally, the models showed global precipitation would reduce by 10 percent globally for one to four years, and the ozone layer would thin, resulting in an influx of dangerous ultraviolet radiation. These results confirm predictions made previously by researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
One hundred Hiroshima-sized bombs make up a mere 0.03 percent of the worldwide nuclear weapons arsenal.
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