Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday:
Lihue, Kauai – 81
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 84
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – M
Kahului airport, Maui – 87
Kona airport – 82
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Tuesday evening:
Kahului, Maui – 81
Hilo, Hawaii – 77
Haleakala Crater – 54 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 41 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals Tuesday evening:
3.49 Kilohana, Kauai
0.02 Honouliuli, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.00 Maui
0.15 Pahoa, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems to the east-northeast of Hawaii, and to the north-northeast. Our winds will be light east Wednesday and Thursday…locally a bit stronger.
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 13,500 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 ended November 30th here in the central Pacific…and begins again June 1st.
Aloha Paragraphs
Generally fair, trade wind breezes…rising south swell
along our leeward beaches – be careful in the ocean.
Light east trade winds lasting through the upcoming holiday weekend into early next week...somewhat stronger at times locally. Glancing at this weather map, we find two high pressure systems, one to the north-northeast, and the other to the east-northeast Tuesday night. The latest forecast continues to suggest that our trade winds will gradually strengthen a bit into the upcoming holiday weekend. There's a chance that they might veer around to the southeast again around next Tuesday, as a trough of low pressure, or a late season cold approaches then…stay tuned for more on this prospect.
Light trade winds prevailing through the rest of the week…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Tuesday evening:
23 mph Port Allen, Kauai – SE
18 Kahuku, Oahu – E
04 Molokai
21 Kahoolawe
18 Lipoa, Maui – SE
08 Lanai Airport
23 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 Tuesday night. This large University of Washington satellite image shows high clouds stretched across the state. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see partly cloudy skies over the islands, much of which is the high cirrus, along with some lower level cumulus clouds. We can use this looping satellite image to see those cirrus clouds traveling pretty much straight west to east. Checking out this looping radar image shows just a few showers falling over the ocean, most notably over the ocean to the west of Kauai at the time of this writing.
Rainfall around the islands has been very limited in most areas from Oahu down through Maui County. Kauai has seen the largest precipitation totals lately…with the Big Island coming in a distant second place. The way it looks from here, perhaps mid-week might see an increase in showers, although this doesn’t look like a wet week, which would be a major understatement. As the frontal boundary moves westward, and the trade winds trek westward now, whatever showers that are around will fall generally along the windward coasts and slopes into the holiday weekend.
~~~ Here in Kihei, Maui, at 530pm Tuesday evening, the skies are partly cloudy, with a mix of both high and lower level clouds. As usual this time of day, both the Haleakala Crater and the West Maui Mountains have attracted cumulus clouds during the afternoon hours. I expect most of the lower clouds to dissipate overnight, although we may see more of those high clouds around into Wednesday. By the way, they make colorful sunset and sunrise colors, so keep an eye out. Meanwhile on a different note, there is a high surf advisory up for our south facing shores starting at 6am Wednesday morning. These larger than normal waves will make more of a challenge to our swimmers, paddlers, divers and snorkelers, so please be careful when getting into the ocean on our south and west facing beaches! You surfers of course will have just fun in contrast. ~~~ I'm heading upcountry now, so I have time to get out for my evening walk before having dinner. I'll be back first thing Wednesday morning, before the sunrise, with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: When a BP oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico last April, killing 11 workers, authorities first reported that no crude was leaking into the ocean. They were wrong. The disaster that captivated the world's attention for 153 days struck at 9:53 p.m. CDT on April 20, when a surge of methane gas known to rig hands as a "kick" sparked an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig as it was drilling the mile-deep Macondo 252 well off Louisiana's coast.
Two days later, the rig sank. One year on, oil from the largest spill in U.S. history clogs wetlands, pollutes the ocean and endangers wildlife, not to mention the toll it has inflicted on the coastal economies of Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and especially Louisiana. It was the biggest ever accidental release of oil into an ocean.
Even so, environmental damage from the ruptured well that spewed more than 4 million barrels of oil (168 million gallons) into the Gulf in three months seems far less dire than the worst predictions, according to some Gulf residents and experts.
"It's a horrible mess but it's not the end of the world," said Edward Overton, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. "Some people thought it would be the end of the Gulf for decades and that's not even near the case," Overton said.
"None of those predictions were right." Such considerations are cold comfort to Gulf residents who saw their livelihoods decimated by the spill. More than 500,000 have claimed compensation from a $20 billion fund set up by BP — at the insistence of President Barack Obama — and administered by Kenneth Feinberg.
The mitigated view will also do little to stem the tide of litigation that will take years to make its way through federal court in New Orleans and beyond as plaintiffs seek to extract damages from London-based BP, which owned the Macondo well, and Swiss-based Transocean, which owned the rig.
"Fishermen are still worried that there's oil on the bottom of the Gulf. But we've got no control over that," said Errol Voisin, manager of the Lafitte Frozen Foods plant in Louisiana, who spoke ahead of a new shrimping season.
Interesting2: Right-handedness is a distinctively human characteristic, with right-handers outnumbering lefties nine-to-one. But how far back does right-handedness reach in the human story? Researchers have tried to determine the answer by looking at ancient tools, prehistoric art and human bones, but the results have not been definitive.
Now, David Frayer, professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, has used markings on fossilized front teeth to show that right-handedness goes back more than 500,000 years. He is the lead author (with colleagues in Croatia, Italy and Spain) of a paper published this month in the British journal Laterality. His research shows that distinctive markings on fossilized teeth correlate to the right or left-handedness of individual prehistoric humans.
"The patterns seen on the fossil teeth are directly and consistently produced by right or left hand manipulation in experimental work," Frayer said. The oldest teeth come from a more than 500,000-year-old chamber known as Sima de los Huesos near Burgos, Spain, containing the remains of humans believed to be ancestors of European Neandertals.
Other teeth studied by Frayer come from later Neandertal populations in Europe. "These marks were produced when a stone tool was accidentally dragged across the labial face in an activity performed at the front of the mouth," said Frayer.
"The heavy scoring on some of the teeth indicates the marks were produced over the lifetime of the individual and are not the result of a single cutting episode." Overall, Frayer and his co-authors found right-handedness in 93.1 percent of individuals sampled from the Sima de los Huesos and European Neandertal sites.
"It is difficult to interpret these fossil data in any way other than that laterality was established early in European fossil record and continued through the Neandertals," said Frayer. "This establishes that handedness is found in more than just recent Homo sapiens."
Frayer said that his findings on right-handedness have implications for understanding the language capacity of ancient populations, because language is primarily located on the left side of the brain, which controls the right side of the body, there is a right handedness-language connection.
"The general correlation between handedness and brain laterality shows that human brains were lateralized in a 'modern' way by at least half a million years ago and the pattern has not changed since then," he said. "There is no reason to suspect this pattern does not extend deeper into the past and that language has ancient, not recent, roots."
Interesting3: India on Tuesday forecast normal rains for the 2011 monsoon, strengthening the prospect for a good farm output that could help bring relief to Asia's third-largest economy in its battle with high food prices. Rainfall is likely to be 98 percent of the long-term average, Earth Sciences Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal told reporters, adding the forecast would be reviewed in June when monsoon rains arrive in South Asia.
"There will be very low probability for seasonal rainfall to be deficient or excess," Bansal said. Good rainfall would boost food output in India, one of the world's top consumers and producers of a range of agricultural commodities, and also help governments throughout Asia to battle food inflation.
A failed monsoon can force India into the international markets as a buyer, as happened in 2009, a year when initial forecasts were calling for normal rains. A normal monsoon means the country receives rainfall between 96-104 percent of a 50-year average of 89 centimeters during the four-month rainy season, according to the India's weather office classification.
India's government, which is struggling with not only inflation but also a massive subsidy bill for fuel, grains and fertilizers, would hope for some price relief from a good monsoon at a time when it is facing key state elections.
Interesting4: Most Americans now agree that climate change is occurring, but still disagree on why, with opinions about the cause of climate change defined by political party, not scientific understanding, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. Republicans most often point to natural causes of climate change while Democrats most often believe that human activities are the cause. The greatest polarization occurs among people who believe they have the best understanding.
"Although there remains active discussion among scientists on many details about the pace and effects of climate change, no leading science organization disagrees that human activities are now changing the Earth's climate. The strong scientific agreement on this point contrasts with the partisan disagreement seen on all of our surveys," said Lawrence Hamilton, professor of sociology and senior fellow with the UNH Carsey Institute.
"However, most people gather information about climate change not directly from scientists but indirectly, for example through news media, political activists, acquaintances, and other nonscience sources. Their understanding reflects not simply scientific knowledge, but rather the adoption of views promoted by political or opinion leaders they follow. People increasingly choose news sources that match their own views. Moreover, they tend to selectively absorb information even from this biased flow, fitting it into their pre-existing beliefs," Hamilton said.
A series of regional surveys conducted by Carsey Institute researchers in 2010 and early 2011 asked nearly 9,500 individuals in seven regions in the United States about climate change.
Key findings include:
* Most people say that they understand either a moderate amount or a great deal about the issue of global warming or climate change.
* Large majorities agree that climate change is happening now, although they split on whether this is attributed mainly to human or natural causes.
* Level of understanding about climate change varies considerably by region.
* Beliefs about climate change are strongly related to political party. Republicans most often believe either that climate is not changing now or that it is changing but from mainly natural causes. Democrats most often believe that the climate is changing now due mainly to human activities.
* Political polarization is greatest among the Republicans and Democrats who are most confident that they understand this issue. Republicans and Democrats less sure about their understanding also tend to be less far apart in their beliefs.
* People who express lower confidence also might be more likely to change their views in response to weather.
"If the scientists are right, evidence of climate change will become more visible and dramatic in the decades ahead. Arctic sea ice, for example, provides one closely watched harbinger of planetary change. In its 2007 report the IPCC projected that late-summer Arctic sea ice could disappear before the end of the 21st century. Since that report was written, steeper-than-expected declines have led to suggestions that summer sea ice might be largely gone by 2030, and some think much sooner," Hamilton said.
"We will find out in time — either the ice will melt, or it won't. The Arctic Ocean, along with other aspects of the ocean-atmosphere system, presents an undeniable physical reality that could become more central to the public debate. In the meantime, however, public beliefs about physical reality remain strikingly politicized," he said.
Email Glenn James: 