Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday:
Lihue, Kauai – 80
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 82
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – 82
Kahului airport, Maui – 88 (record for Wednesday 89 – 1983, 1984)
Kona airport – 84
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 82
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Wednesday evening:
Kapalua, Maui – 84
Kaneohe, Oahu – 77
Haleakala Crater – 55 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 45 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Wednesday evening:
0.14 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
1.81 Wilson Tunnel, Oahu
0.10 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.37 Kaupo Gap, Maui
0.98 Kealakekua, 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 the tail-end of a cold front to our north. At the same time we find high pressure systems to our northeast. Our local winds will be picking up again Thursday into 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. 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. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here.
Aloha Paragraphs
Strengthening trade winds…a few windward showers
Our local winds will be on the rise from the trade wind direction Thursday…through the rest of this week. Glancing at this weather map, we find two high pressure systems to our northeast, while a surface low pressure trough remains well offshore to our west. As we move into the weekend the winds will become stronger and gusty, necessitating small craft wind advisories in those windiest locations around the state.
Our winds will be quite light, although we'll see larger numbers below later Thursday…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Wednesday evening:
08 Port Allen, Kauai – SW
20 Kahuku, Oahu – E
09 Molokai – SW
18 Kahoolawe – SE
22 Lipoa, Maui – E
06 Lanai – WNW
20 South Point – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Wednesday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see clear to partly cloudy skies over and around the islands. There are some high cirrus clouds to our north and southwest too. We can use this looping satellite image to see a counterclockwise rotating upper level low pressure system far to our west. This weather feature will push some high cirrus clouds over us soon. Checking out this looping radar image shows some showers falling over the ocean to our southwest, with just a few over the islands at the time of this writing.
Sunset Commentary: The winds will remain light into Thursday morning, although from then through the end of the week, they will be accelerating. As these trade winds pick up again during the afternoon on Thursday, the emphasis for showers will stick pretty closely to the windward sides well into the future.
These trade winds will remain rather strong and gusty through the upcoming weekend. This is the time of year that our trade winds dominate here in the tropical latitudes of the Hawaiian Islands. We'll likely see small craft wind advisories going up over those windiest coastal and channel marine zones by Friday. These windy areas often turn out to be around Maui and the Big Island, although can slide up over other areas in the state at times too. This trade wind flow may become deep enough to bring gusty winds all the way up to the summit area of the Haleakala Crater by Friday into Saturday.
Here in Kihei, Maui at 525pm Wednesday evening, there are still quite a few clouds around, most fondly caressing the mountain slopes…although having slid out towards the coasts locally. There wasn't as many showers around as I expected, with yesterday afternoon being the wettest, rather than today as I thought would happen. This is our last day of light winds, as the trade winds will be whistling back into our area Thursday, and well into the future from there. It seems rather likely that our weather will be nice to very nice as we push through the rest of this week. The windward sides, at least here on Maui are dry, and definitely could use some more rainfall before we head into summer. ~~~ I'm heading home to Kula now, and will meet you here again on Thursday with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: The original settlers of Polynesia migrated through South-East Asia and Indonesia across Melanesia, before settling the Polynesian islands beginning in 1000 BC. Hawaii was one of the last island groups to be settled. Archaeological evidence indicates the first Polynesians arrived in Hawaii from the Marquesas between 500 and 700 AD.
Hawaii has often been thought of as an earthly paradise. Still people must live and eat. A pattern of earthen berms, spread across a northern peninsula of the big island of Hawaii, is providing archeologists with clues to exactly how residents farmed in paradise long before Europeans arrived at the islands.
"Archeologically, this kind of research is really hard to do in most places since there is rarely a signature for the agricultural activity, or a strong connection between the remains of a house and a plot of farmland," explained, Julie Field, an assistant professor of anthropology at Ohio State University.
Field, along with colleagues from California and New Zealand, has spent three field seasons unearthing the remnants of an agricultural gridwork that dates back nearly 600 years. The pattern was formed by a series of earthen walls, or berms, which served as windbreaks, protecting the crops.
During the summer, trades prevail more than 90% of the time, sometimes persisting throughout an entire month. However, in the winter, January through March, trade winds may occur only 40% to 60% of the time. Though pleasantly brisk and refreshingly cool on land, strong, gusty trade winds can cause problems for mariners and for agriculture.
Blowing from the NE through East direction, these strong trades funnel through the major channels between the islands at speeds 5-20 knots faster than the speeds over the open ocean. "In this part of Hawaii, the trade winds blow all the time, so the berms are there to protect the crops from the winds.
The main crop was sweet potato which likes dry loose soil. The berms protect the soil from being blown away." Field said. Previous work by other researchers has radiocarbon dated organic material found in the berms, establishing a timeline for when the agricultural system was first built.
Over time, more walls were built, subdividing the original agricultural plots into smaller and smaller parcels. At the same time, other researchers were able to date materials from household sites of the early Hawaiians, and link those dates to the building of specific agricultural plots.
"Our study is unique in that we can trace the activities of very, very small groups of people and, from that, try to glean the larger processes of society. We want to look at parts of Hawaii and treat them as a model for the evolution of Hawaiian society." This showed that individual households that farmed the land expanded over time and then separated into new households as the population grew.
Similar to the feudal system of Europe, a portion of the crop surplus was always designated for the chiefs. Historical evidence has suggested that the great chiefs owned all the land in the areas which they controlled. They allocated control of portions of the land to their kinsmen and retainers, who then apportioned land to the commoners.
"This suggests to us that the field system was originally put in place probably by individual households that produced crops for their own consumption. Our study is unique in that we can trace the activities of very, very small groups of people and, from that, try to glean the larger processes of society," Field said.
Interesting2: More than 1 million feral camels are thrashing the remote Australian desert, destroying water supplies and disturbing Aboriginal communities to the tune of 10 million Australian dollars a year. As part of plans to contain the camel's havoc and reduce the animals' numbers, managers have launched a website, CamelScan, where the public can report feral camel sightings and damages using a Google maps-based tool.
"They can do enormous damage," said Jan Ferguson, managing director of Ninti One Limited, the organization that manages the Feral Camel Management Project, which launched CamelScan. "They can eat up to very high heights in our trees. When water is short, they go for running water.
They will take pipes and air conditioning units off of walls, and smash up toilet systems." The program adds another species to the list of programs tracking other feral animals in Australia, including rabbits, foxes and myna birds. Since CamelScan launched earlier this month, the public has logged nearly 150 sightings. "You need to count these animals.
You need to know where they are and what they're doing," said Ferguson. The single-humped dromedary camels were brought mainly from India in the second half of the 19th century to work in the scrubby, red-earthed arid parts of the Australian outback, transporting people and as pack animals. Once trains, roads and machinery made them obsolete as workers, the camels were let loose, creating the world's only population of wild camels.
Interesting3: UK and Russian scientists say they are a step closer to predicting how dangerous a volcano is after developing a method that lets them figure out how individual volcanoes are 'plumbed'. The new approach means researchers need only analyze a single chunk of rock from a volcano to work out how big and deep its magma chamber is.
The same method also lets them calculate the length and width of the vent that brings the magma from the chamber to the surface. Having both measurements is vital for predicting how hazardous a volcano will be.
'Generally speaking if a volcano has a big magma chamber and a narrow, short vent, the volcano tends to be more explosive than a volcano with a small chamber and wide vent,' says Professor Jon Blundy from the University of Bristol, a member of the research team. 'So, if we know the details of the plumbing system underneath a volcano, we're in a better position to say how dangerous it is likely to be,' he adds.
Interesting4: In 2008, the U.S. Congress called for NOAA to execute an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to establish a committee that would “investigate and study the serious and sweeping issues relating to global climate change and make recommendations regarding what steps must be taken and what strategies must be adopted in response to global climate change, including the science and technology challenges thereof."
As the funding agency and a contributor of scientific expertise for this study, NOAA commends the members of the Committee on America’s Climate Choices for their diligent work over the last three years and their valuable contributions to this monumental effort.
This final report, from the nation’s most esteemed scientific body, is another independent, peer reviewed scientific report that adds to the growing body of scientific information telling us that climate change is occurring and poses significant risks to America's economy, communities and natural resources.
This report not only re-affirms the broad international scientific consensus about the causes and consequences of climate change, but makes clear that comprehensive, sustained efforts must begin today to deal with those consequences. As the report states, the question is no longer if the climate is changing, but rather what are the options for dealing with it.
Specifically, what are the tools and information that communities need to 1) understand the risks, 2) prepare for and deal with impact already occurring and 3) understand what actions they can take to limit future emissions and the magnitude of future impacts. A key message from this report is that the sooner we act, the more economically and socially resilient our communities will be and the more flexibility they will have to address and adapt to climate change impacts.
The actions needed to reduce emissions and adapt a changing climate also present significant opportunities for technological innovation and job creation. The report advocates a new, iterative decision-making framework in which actions can be revised as new knowledge about climate change emerges.
NOAA will continue to build its capacity to advance climate science and deliver climate information and services. Our goal is to provide the most reliable and relevant climate information to communities, businesses and governments – information that will also speed development of the emerging private sector climate services industry.
This is an important step in helping Americans understand and make informed decisions with consequences for all of society from national security and infrastructure, to farming, energy and transportation, and disaster preparedness.
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