Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday:
Lihue, Kauai – 81
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 85
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – 84
Kahului airport, Maui – 87 (record high temperature Thursday – 91F…1953)
Kona airport – 82
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 79
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 – 83
Hilo, Hawaii – 77
Haleakala Crater – 50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Thursday evening:
9.05 Kapahi, Kauai
0.60 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.07 Oheo Gulch, Maui
1.06 Waiakea Uka, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a surface trough of low pressure located west of the state, with a weak low pressure system further to our northwest. At the same time we find a high pressure system far to our north. Our local winds will continue to come up from the east to southeast Friday into the weekend…strongest towards Maui and the Big Island.
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 shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset 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
Showers locally, some heavy…with possible
thunderstorms near Kauai or Oahu
Flash Flood watch Kauai and Oahu
Our local winds will blow from the east to southeast through the next several days…at least. Glancing at this weather map, we find a 1035 millibar high pressure system far to our north, while a trough of low pressure is positioned to our west, with its parent 1012 millibar low pressure system to the northwest of the state, which are responsible for keeping our wind directions from the southeast to east. The eastern side of the island chain has locally strong easterly winds, at least in gusts…while the Kauai side continues to see lighter southeasterly breezes. It will take until next week before our classic trade winds fill in across the entire state.
Our local winds will be quite light although locally stronger…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Thursday evening:
13 Port Allen, Kauai – SE
20 Kahuku, Oahu – ENE
07 Molokai
28 Kahoolawe – ESE
24 Lipoa, Maui – E
10 Lanai
28 South Point, Hawaii – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Thursday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we a considerable amount of clouds across parts of the island chain, with high cirrus clouds streaming overhead from the west and southwest. We can use this looping satellite image to see these high clouds moving over the entire state, with some embedded heavy showers and thunderstorms over the ocean near Kauai and Oahu. Checking out this looping radar image shows locally heavy showers, with some thunderstorms near Kauai and Oahu…with hardly any showers towards Maui County and the Big Island.
Sunset Commentary: There’s pretty much a virtual dividing line across the middle of the Aloha state now. Kauai and Oahu are on the left side, with Maui County and the Big Island on the right. Breezes from the southeast are fairly light on the western side (Kauai), with gusts that reached 35 mph near Maui and the Big Island during the day Thursday…to the east.
Heavy showers and even thunderstorms are part of the forecast for Kauai and Oahu, while just a few windward showers will be carried towards Maui and the Big Island. The one exception to this clear cut weather reality will be the Kona coffee plantations, where showers could intensify during the afternoons…due to the upslope sea breezes there. This looping radar image demonstrates where the heavy showers are located Thursday night, with this broader view available here.
Climatology, a tool providing long term weather trends, is finding the current circumstances an outlier…or outside the norm. Typically, the trade winds would be blowing, would have been blowing, and would continue to blow through the rest of spring, through summer, and right on into autumn. The current upper level low pressure system to our northwest, and its associated trough to our west, are interrupting this very common trade wind flow…at least for Kauai.
These low pressure features have been unusually frequent visitors this past winter and into spring…likely due to the La Nina influence here in the Pacific Ocean. They not only veer our local winds around to the south and southeast, but have triggered lots of rain over the last several months…especially on the Kauai end of the island chain. Hopefully we’ll be able to slip by a drought, or at least a severe drought this year.
Here in Kihei, Maui this evening its quite cloudy, although compared to Kauai and Oahu, there is no sign of thunderstorms, some of which were severe this afternoon on Kauai. When I get back home to Kula, I'll come back online and share with you the rainfall totals for Kauai, which come out at 545pm, and should be pretty impressive. Otherwise, I don't expect our weather on this side of the state to be making news, although on the Kauai side, it is still rather wild. This is thanks to that long lasting upper level low pressure system to our northwest, and the trough dangling southward from it to the west of Kauai. I hope you have a great Thursday night, until I present your next new weather narrative from paradise early Friday morning! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Yesterday, Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, announced that the government was scrapping a planned expansion of nuclear power, which currently provides about a third of Japanese electricity. Instead, the government would redouble efforts to expand its renewable energy portfolio, Kan said. The turnaround followed Kan's urging last week that a reactor in Hamaoka, near an active seismic zone, be shut down; the company that runs the plant has agreed and is building a seawall to protect the plant from tsunamis when it reopens in 2 years.
The Fukushima disaster "gives the Japanese an opportunity," Japan business expert William Tsutsui of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, tells ScienceInsider. "It could be a shot in the arm for renewable technologies."
In a useful article Time's Krista Mahr reviews various sectors of the Japanese energy economy to assess its options to get greener: because of the nation's special attention to developing nuclear power since the oil crisis of the 1970s, the renewable sector is surprisingly anemic for a nation where expertise in renewable technologies is so high and where every gas station has approximately 24 different kinds of recycling bins.
Less than 1% of Japan's electricity comes from wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. Of those renewable options, wind energy probably has the greatest potential for the medium term in Japan, but it faces the challenge of an electrical grid infrastructure that's poorly suited to take the power it generate, Mahr noted.
Geothermal power is another area Japan could turn to: Japan has the third largest geothermal energy potential in the world after the U.S. and Indonesia. But in terms of harnessing that heat and turning it into power, Japan only ranks 8th, after countries with drastically smaller populations, like Iceland and New Zealand.
Today, Japan only generates about .1% of its electricity in 19 geothermal energy plants, many of which are located in the Tohoku region where the Fukushima nuclear power plant is located. Some think Japan will be unable to forgo expansion of nuclear power in the long run. "The government is still going to want a nuclear strategy, but it will be 2 to 3 years before anything is rolled out in public," Tsutsui told Insider.
Interesting2: Leaders of Arctic nations gather in Greenland this week to chart future cooperation as global warming sets off a race for oil, mineral, fishing and shipping opportunities in the world's fragile final frontier. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will join foreign ministers from seven other Arctic states in Greenland's tiny capital of Nuuk — population 15,000 — on Thursday for an Arctic Council meeting on the next steps for a region where warming temperatures are creating huge new challenges and unlocking untapped resources.
The council includes the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark, which handles foreign affairs for Greenland, as well as groups representing indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic most directly affected as ice and snow retreat.
"It's an important gathering, but also a symbol of some of the big challenges that the Arctic faces," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told a Washington think-tank audience on Monday, noting that U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar would accompany Clinton to Nuuk. "There are very core interests that are at stake in the Arctic, but it is an opportunity to find new patterns of cooperation," he said.
Evidence is mounting of climatic transformation in the Arctic, where temperatures are already at their highest levels than at any time in the past 2,000 years and are rising much faster than elsewhere in the world. Oil companies are alert to the potential of the Arctic, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimates may hold 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves.
Among oil majors eyeing the Arctic are Royal Dutch Shell Plc, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, Norway's Statoil and Russia's state-controlled oil group Rosneft. Global shipping, too, is adapting to the new conditions. Previously icebound routes such as the Northern Sea Route past Russia and the Northwest Passage along Canada have become increasingly navigable — cutting transport time but raising questions about how the region will be managed.
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sam mcfadden Says:
The ocean is warm to our west and southwest as a source of the warm winds hitting the cool winds just to our west and north west seems gonna be there for a while Glenn. Thanks for your note Sam, Aloha, Glenn