Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 77
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – 81
Kahului airport, Maui – 83
Kona airport – 81
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 85
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Thursday evening:
Kahului, Maui – 81F
Lihue, Kauai – 77
Haleakala Crater – missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (under 14,000 feet on the Big Island)
Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals Thursday afternoon:
4.16 Kapahi, Kauai
1.44 Punaluu Stream, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.01 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.08 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems northwest and northeast of the islands. At the same time we have developing low pressure system to our west, with a cold front approaching the state. Our winds will blow from the south and southwest…becoming locally strong and gusty, especially around Kauai and Oahu.
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
Cloudy, showers and wind Thursday night and Friday –
some of which will be heavy and blustery on Kauai and Oahu,
along with thunderstorms at times.
Flood watch on both of those two islands.
Hazy with a few showers Maui County and the Big Island
Small craft advisories some coasts, high wind
warning summits of Big Island and Maui,
gale warning offshore waters.
Wind Advisory over portions of Oahu and Kauai
Winds have shifted around to the south and southwest, which will strengthen from the southwest tonight into Friday. According to this weather map, we see high pressure systems north-northwest and east-northeast of Hawaii. A trough of low pressure is deepening to our west-northwest, which will send its associated cold front to Kauai and Oahu Friday. As this happens we'll experience stronger winds developing from the south and southwest ahead of it. As expected, these winds will become blustery, coming ashore along our south and west facing coasts and slopes…Kona winds. These winds will bring rough and choppy conditions to these leeward coastal waters. Winds at the upper elevations on Maui and the Big Island will become strong and gusty as well, with a high wind warning in effect on those summits. At the same time, winds over Kauai and Oahu's lowland will increase as well, which has prompted a wind advisory over those two western islands. Winds in the wake of the front will be northeast later this weekend…turning east and lasting through most of next week.
Winds will be pick up as we go through the night into Friday…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Thursday evening:
25 mph Lihue, Kauai – SW
35 Wheeler AFB, Oahu – SE
25 Molokai – SE
22 Kahoolawe –SW
24 Kahului, Maui – SW
14 Lanai Airport – SSW
24 Hilo, Big Island – SE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Thursday night. This large University of Washington satellite image shows a large mass of clouds southwest through northeast, as it continues to move over the Hawaiian Islands….especially on the Kauai side of the chain…where the heaviest rains are located. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture, we see generally partly to mostly cloudy skies, a combination of high and low level clouds…although there are rainy clouds and even thunderstorms near Kauai and Oahu. We can use this looping satellite image to see those clouds to our west and southwest continuing to stream in our direction, which will remain the case into Friday. Checking out this looping radar image, it shows rainy clouds and even a few thunderstorms being carried towards and over Kauai, while the other islands are mainly dry at the time of this writing…with just a few showers in contrast.
The rains began falling over the Kauai and Oahu side of the chain Thursday morning, while Maui and the Big Island remained generally dry through the day…although partly sunny. The trough of low pressure to our west will be moving northeast, passing close to Kauai and Oahu in the process…thus the increase in showers. The NWS office in Honolulu is keeping the flash flood watch active for Kauai and Oahu, where the bulk of the incoming rain will fall for the time being. It may turn out that those two islands continue to receive the most generous rainfall throughout this wet weather event. There is a good chance that thunderstorms will occur, increasing the chance of heavy rains…and flash flooding. This cold front is expected to weaken as it slides down towards Maui County Friday night into Saturday, and then finally dissipating somewhere around the Big Island on Sunday.
Trade winds will follow in the wake of the cold front on Sunday, keeping the windward sides off and on showery into early next week. The leeward sides will probably have decent weather in contrast, although this will depend upon the direction and strength of the following winds. Often if these trade winds are northeast, some showers could be carried over into the south and west leeward sides on the smaller islands. The Big Island will be immune from these showers, as there isn’t a clear path (low elevation corridor) from the windward to the leeward sides there. The latest computer model output suggests that the trade winds will continue to blow through most of the new week…bringing showers to the windward sides at times.
~~~ Here in Kihei, Maui at around 530pm Thursday evening, skies were partly cloudy, with a mix of high and lower level clouds. The atmosphere remains very hazy with vog as well. It seems dry out there, with this looping radar image showing most of the rain, at least at the moment, taking a straight track towards Kauai and Niihau. Oahu is getting a few showers, and will likely get more during the night into Friday. The cold front still isn't clearly visible, as the high and middle level clouds are hiding it at the moment. The main threat now is perhaps the thunderstorms, which can bring heavy rains and very gusty winds. There have been some very impressive thunderstorms roaming the area around Kauai today. Friday should be an interesting day, as the cold front arrives over those western islands. Maui County and the Big Island could still get into this wet weather picture, although most likely having to wait until Friday night or Saturday. I'll be back early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: In a "stunning win for the oceans", Costco recently stepped up its Sustainable Seafood policies. Improving on voluntary changes announced last August, Costco issued its Seafood and Sustainability report agreeing to stop selling 12 red-listed varieties of fish.
Unless its sources are certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), self-described as "the world's leading certification and eco-labeling program for sustainable seafood", Costco will not resume sales of these 12 varieties. Additionally, Costco highlighted their association with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to identify sustainable fisheries for certain at-risk species.
The 12 wild specifies identified as being at great risk (on the Greenpeace Red Fish list) that Costco agreed to stop selling are: Atlantic cod, Atlantic halibut, Chilean sea bass, Greenland halibut, grouper, monkfish, orange roughy, redfish, shark, skates and rays, swordfish, and bluefin tuna.
Fish that land on the Greenpeace International Seafood Red List have a very high risk if being sourced from unsustainable fisheries or unsustainable aquaculture operations. The key problems with the fisheries that catch these species include destructive fishing methods, overfishing, unselective fishing methods, and pirate fishing.
Interesting2: The door could now be open for a "significant" number of new offshore drilling permits, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Wednesday, as the administration comes under increased pressure to tackle surging world oil prices.
The Interior department on Monday issued a permit for a deepwater well co-owned by Noble Energy Inc and BP, the first such permit since a rig explosion unleashed millions of barrels of oil from BP's Macondo well into the Gulf of Mexico last year.
"There are other deepwater permits that are pending and the ones that will go out the door will hopefully be the templates that will allow us to move forward with an additional, significant number of deepwater permits," Salazar told a Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee hearing.
After the BP oil spill, the department imposed a temporary ban on exploratory drilling at depths of more than 500 feet. While the moratorium was lifted last October, no new deepwater permits were issued until this week.
The department has faced intense criticism, as well as legal action, over the slow pace of permitting.
Still, Salazar warned that if his department does not receive the funding it has requested permitting may not speed up as much as industry would like.
"If we don't get the horsepower to be able to process permits under what is now a greater degree of scrutiny, we may never return to the pre-Macondo rate of permitting," Salazar said after the hearing.
Last month, a federal judge gave the department 30 days to decide whether to approve five other pending permits to drill in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Although Salazar said he believes the ruling inappropriately impedes on his administrative authority, the department plans to comply with this order.
Republican lawmakers have sharply criticized the slow approvals, saying it will leave the country more vulnerable to oil price shocks down the road. Lawmakers from both parties have also been asking for a release of oil from the 727-million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Interesting3: Our earliest ancestors preferred to settle in locations that have something in common with cities such as San Francisco, Naples and Istanbul — they are often on active tectonic faults in areas that have an earthquake risk or volcanoes, or both. An international team of scientists has established a link between the shape of the landscape and the habitats preferred by our earliest ancestors.
The research, by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, the University of York and the Institut de Physique du Globe Paris (IPGP), is published in the March 2011 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
The four-year study examines the geomorphology (literally the shape of the landscape) around ancient sites in southern Africa.
Lead author, South African Dr Sally Reynolds, a palaeo-anthropologist at Witwatersrand who conducted the research during a postdoctoral fellowship at IPGP, says: "We were stunned when during a fieldwork trip in South Africa in 2007, Professor Geoffrey King and I discovered evidence that hominin sites such as Taung, Sterkfontein and Makapansgat, show landscape features in combinations that are not random, but result from tectonic motions, such as earthquakes."
Several lines of scientific evidence suggest that Australopithecus africanus (like the 'Mrs Ples' fossil from Sterkfontein) was adapted to mixed, or mosaic habitats — landscapes with trees and open grassland, with some wetland marshy areas. The study suggests that it was the type of mosaic environment created by tectonic earth movements near rivers or lakes.
These features including cliffs, sedimented valleys, river gorges and drier plateau areas in close proximity of about 10 kilometers, are created when sections of Earth's crust move in response to pressure, then blocks of land are lifted up, while others are forced downwards. When this happens next to a river, the result is the creation of wetland, marshy areas close to drier plateaus and areas of erosion.
Professor Geoff Bailey, from the University of York, who is the lead author on an accompanying paper, also published in the same issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, confirms: "This link between earthquakes and human habitation is one we've long suspected was there. Regions vulnerable to earthquake and volcanic activity often create landscapes with long-term benefits for human settlement. But the tragic events in Christchurch are a graphic illustration of the attendant risk of these locations."
Professor King, a tectonic geo-morphologist at the IPGP, adds: "The original idea was developed in Greece over a decade ago, with the surprising discovery that the sites there were clearly associated with ongoing tectonic activity.
"Even though South Africa appears to be tectonically stable, there are landscape features that indicate that modest levels of activity are preserved in the hard, southern African rocks. This means that the landscape model we developed in Greece is equally applicable to East Africa, and now also to the well-known fossil sites of the South Africa's Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site."
Dr Reynolds, who is also an honorary research fellow at the School of Natural Sciences and Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, explains "Our hominin ancestors would have been unaware of the tectonic influence on their habitats, but instead would have been attracted by the range of food and shelter offered."
The combination of drinking water, steep cliffs that provided shelter from predators, together with a range of feeding sources constitute the key ingredients for an ideal habitat for our ancestors.
Interesting4: A treasure trove of finely crafted fishing spearheads from 12,000 years ago has been discovered on the Channel Islands of California. They are a clue to the lifestyles of some of the earliest American settlers, and suggest that two separate cultures lived in North America at the time: one, the well-known Clovis culture, lived inland and feasted on mammoths, mastodons and other mammals; the other was a coastal culture with a taste for seafood.
The archaeologists who made the find believe that the two groups were distinct, but shared trade links.
Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon in Eugene and his team poked around caves, springs and likely sites of ancient human settlement on the islands of Santa Rosa and San Miguel, and found more than 50 shell middens – large trash heaps of discarded seashells, chipped stone tools and animal bones – which they dated to between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago.
They think that during this period early Americans used the islands for seasonal hunting camps, most likely in the winter when fresh water would have been plentiful. The remains suggest that early colonizers hunted birds such as overwintering Canada geese, snow geese, albatross and cormorants – and possibly marine mammals like otters and seals – but also harvested a variety of shellfish from kelp forests, including mussels, red abalone and crabs.
Such a diet contrasts with the big-game hunters who lived on the mainland at the time and liked to chase camels, horses and mastodons.
Delicate work
But what astonished Erlandson and his colleagues were the tools they found near the middens.
Team member Todd Braje of Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, describes finely crafted barbed spearheads. "We found very thin, expertly made projectile points and it blew us away that these delicate flint-knapped points are this old," he says. Such tools are generally only found at more recent sites.
These fine, barbed points are markedly different from those previously found at Clovis sites, which tend to be simple, fluted points. This hints at the coexistence of two separate groups of people in North America at the time.
However, Loren Davis of Oregon State University in Corvallis points out that the team also found Clovis-like spearheads on the islands: he says that tools he has dug up on the North American mainland look nearly identical to some of the ones Erlandson and his team found.
"That means peoples on the Channel Islands and people in western Idaho, for example, were at one point exposed to the same ideas about how to make technology," Davis says. A likely explanation is that the two groups shared some kind of trade.
By land or sea?
That Erlandson and his teams found the remains on what was once a single island off the coast of modern-day California is also significant. There are many hypotheses for how humans colonized North America: one popular scenario is that they crossed over from Asia across a land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska.
But some historians believe at least some of the early settlers were seafarers, and either dropped down along the coast from Alaska or even crossed over from Japan. Erlandson and his colleagues say their new finds support the idea that the first people to inhabit the Americas were mariners, or perhaps that land and sea-based migrations occurred in tandem.
It's too early to say for sure. Davis points out – and Braje concedes – that the Channel Island sites are not the oldest in the Americas, so they do not tell us about the very first pioneers. Still, Braje says, "this pushes back the chronology of New World seafaring to 12,000, maybe 13,000 years ago. It gets us a big step closer to showing that a coastal migration route happened, or was at least possible."
Interesting5: Imagine the vast, empty tundra in Alaska and Canada giving way to trees, shrubs and plants typical of more southerly climates. Imagine similar changes in large parts of Eastern Europe, northern Asia and Scandinavia, as needle-leaf and broadleaf forests push northward into areas once unable to support them. Imagine part of Greenland's ice cover, once thought permanent, receding and leaving new tundra in its wake.
Those changes are part of a reorganization of Arctic climates anticipated to occur by the end of the 21st century, as projected by a team of University of Nebraska-Lincoln and South Korean climatologists.
In an article to be published in a forthcoming issue of the scientific journal Climate Dynamics, the research team analyzed 16 global climate models from 1950 to 2099 and combined it with more than 100 years of observational data to evaluate what climate change might mean to the Arctic's sensitive ecosystems by the dawn of the 22nd century.
The study is one of the first to apply a specific climate classification system to a comprehensive examination of climate changes throughout the Arctic by using both observations and a collection of projected future climate changes, said Song Feng, research assistant professor in UNL's School of Natural Resources and the study's lead author.
Based on the climate projections, the new study shows that the areas of the Arctic now dominated by polar and sub-polar climate types will decline and will be replaced by more temperate climates — changes that could affect a quarter to nearly half of the Arctic, depending on future greenhouse gas emission scenarios, by the year 2099.
Changes to Arctic vegetation will naturally follow shifts in the region's climates: Tundra coverage would shrink by 33 to 44 percent by the end of the century, while temperate climate types that support coniferous forests and needle-leaf trees would push northward into the breach, the study shows.
"The expansion of forest may amplify global warming, because the newly forested areas can reduce the surface reflectivity, thereby further warming the Arctic," Feng said. "The shrinkage of tundra and expansion of forest may also impact the habitat for wildlife and local residents."
Also according to the study:
* By the end of the century, the annual average surface temperature in Arctic regions is projected to increase by 5.6 to 9.5 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the greenhouse gas emission scenarios.
* The warming, however, is not evenly distributed across the Arctic. The strongest warming in the winter (by 13 degrees Fahrenheit) will occur along the Arctic coast regions, with moderate warming (by 4 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit) along the North Atlantic rim.
* The projected redistribution of climate types differ regionally; in northern Europe and Alaska, the warming may cause more rapid expansion of temperate climate types than in other places.
* Tundra in Alaska and northern Canada would be reduced and replaced by boreal forests and shrubs by 2059. Within another 40 years, the tundra would be restricted to the northern coast and islands of the Arctic Ocean.
* The melting of snow and ice in Greenland following the warming will reduce the permanent ice cover, giving its territory up to tundra.
"The response of vegetation usually lags changes in climate. The plants don't have legs, so it takes time for plant seed dispersal, germination and establishment of seedlings," Feng said. Still, the shrub density in tundra regions has seen a rapid increase on decadal and shorter time scales, while the boreal forest expansion has seen a much slower response on century time scales.
Also, increasing drought conditions may help offset any potential benefits of warmer temperatures and reduce the overall vegetation growth in the Arctic regions, Feng said.
Non-climate factors — human activity, land use changes, permafrost thawing, pest outbreaks and wildfires, for example — may also locally affect the response of vegetation to temperature warming in the Arctic.
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