Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / May 23-24, 2011

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday:

Lihue, Kauai –                    81
Honolulu airport, Oahu –     86  (record for high Monday 91 – 1995)
Kaneohe, Oahu –                80
Molokai airport –                 84
Kahului airport, Maui –             85   
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 Monday evening:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 84
Kaneohe, Oahu – 78

Haleakala Crater –     50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 37 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)

Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Monday evening:

1.38     Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.26     Kahuku, Oahu
0.00     Molokai
0.00     Lanai
0.00     Kahoolawe
1.03     West Wailuaiki, Maui
1.03     Waiakea Uka, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a dissipating frontal boundary to our northeast. At the same time we find a 1030 millibar high pressure system to our northeast, with a new 1032 millibar high pressure system to our north-northwest. Our local winds will be remain rather strong and gusty Tuesday and 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. 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

Trade wind weather pattern…windward showers at times

 

Our local winds will remain blowing from the trade wind direction through the next week…at least. Glancing at this weather map, we find a moderately strong high pressure system located to our northeast, with its associated ridge extending west to the north of our islands. The trade winds will remain on the strong and gusty side of the wind spectrum locally, with small craft wind advisory flags up across those windiest areas around Maui County and the Big Island…through Thursday evening. The upper slopes and summits, on both Maui and the Big Island will continue to find gusty trade winds blowing through mid-week as well.

Our winds will be locally strong and gusty…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Monday evening:

30                 Port Allen, Kauai – ENE 
28                 Kahuku, Oahu – NE 
33                 Molokai – NE
35                    Kahoolawe – ESE   
35                    Kahului, Maui – NE 
20                 Lanai – NE  
31                 South Point – NE   

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Monday night.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see clear to partly cloudy skies over and around the islands. Most of the clouds are located over the ocean, which are being carried to the windward sides in the gusty trade winds here and there. We can use this looping satellite image to see thinning stream of high clouds to our south, moving swiftly in the upper winds towards the east. Checking out this looping radar image shows showers falling locally, although most of them were falling over the ocean, which will most commonly slide over the windward sides in places…especially during the nights.

Sunset Commentary:  The well established trade wind weather pattern will remain in place over the islands. High pressure to the north and northeast will be the source of these rather blustery winds, at least locally. As usual, the coasts and channels around Maui County and the Big Island are where those strongest winds prevail. The trade winds are deeper than usual at this time, thus the prospect of stronger than normal winds at the highest elevations on both Maui and the Big Island. The small craft wind advisory in those marine zones is in effect through Thursday. None of the above is all that unusual for this time of year, and is actually pretty typical for late in the month of May.

As for precipitation, there will continue to be passing showers carried by these trades. Local radar imagery shows showers moving along over the ocean offshore of the islands. These patches of showery clouds will however reach the islands, bringing this beneficial moisture to the windward coasts and slopes at times. This can happen just about any time of day or night, although is often most frequent during the cooler nights and early mornings. The trade winds will be strong enough that a few of these showers can always fly over into the leeward sides, on the smaller islands. There continues to be no large organized shower areas to our east…so it will be a hit and miss situation. Again, this is fairly typical for this time of year.

Here in Kihei, Maui at 615pm Monday evening, its still breezy, with generally clear skies in all direction…even over on the windward sides. I would imagine that there will be a few showers arriving during the night into the early morning hours Tuesday. This is very typical, which leaves our leeward sides mostly clear and dry in most cases. I'm just now heading back upcountry to Kula, and will catch up with your early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Monday  night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: Namibia is a country in southern Africa which borders the Atlantic Ocean, just north of the nation of South Africa. The nation was a German Imperial protectorate from 1884 to the end of World War I, when the League of Nations gave South Africa the ruling authority. After a long struggle, Namibia achieved independence 1990.

This is a typical story for many south African nations, but what sets Namibia apart is its outstanding wildlife conservation programs. Using a community-based system, it has maintained a healthy native ecosystem which has seen sharp increases in its key wildlife populations.

The nation's conservancies are run by ordinary people in the local communities. They record human-wildlife interactions, list rare or endangered species, and calculate their own annual budget. Currently, there are 64 community-based conservancies which cover about 17 percent of the land area.

This is more land than is held in Namibia’s state-run parks. The community run areas are not exactly parks, because people live there and raise their livestock. However, they set aside a portion of their land exclusively for wildlife. Their goal is to create value through hunting and tourism.

The national Ministry of Environment and Tourism has recognized this value and even translocates endangered species to these conservancies for protection. The reason this community-based system works so well in Namibia and not other African nations is because Namibia has only six people per square mile.

Other large nations like South Africa which has 94 people per square mile and Kenya with 158 per square mile have more difficulty mixing human and wildlife populations. Having such a low population density, Namibia was able to transfer ownership of wildlife conservation to the people.

This is similar to the US Fish and Wildlife Service the duty of gray wolf protection to Montana cattle ranchers. Community ownership seems like a radical idea, but it went along with the nation's liberation movement in the 1990's. Now these conservancies make an overall $5.3 million and generated $40 million for the Namibian economy.

This is serious money for a country where people live on a dollar a day. Trophy hunting is a big revenue generator followed by equipment rentals and wildlife tours. Namibian communities know that there are incentives to protecting their wildlife. They take pride in watching over "their" animals.

The radical idea of community-based ownership is now spoken about being implemented in other parts of the globe. For example, Nepal wants to use it to protect its rhinos and tigers, and Mongolia to protect its argali sheep.

Interesting2: A new NASA and university study of the March 11, 2011, Japan earthquake that included researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provides the most comprehensive look to date at how Earth moved that day, unleashing widespread destruction and a devastating tsunami. The study of the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki quake, led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and published online in the May 19 issue of Science Express, details the first large set of observational data from this rare mega-thrust earthquake event.

Among the study’s findings: – The length of fault that experienced significant slip during the quake was about 155 miles about half of what would be conventionally expected for an event of this magnitude. The area of greatest slip — 98 feet (30 meters) or more — happened within a 31- to 62-mile-long segment.

– High- and low-frequency seismic waves can come from different areas of a fault. The quake’s high-frequency seismic waves were generated much closer to the coast, away from the area of the fault slip, where low-frequency waves were observed.

– The amount of strain associated with the quake’s displacement was five to 10 times larger than normally seen in large mega-thrust earthquakes. Before now, it was generally believed that the relatively soft material of the seafloor near the Japan Trench could not support such a large amount of stress. Because of this local strengthening of the seafloor, the researchers believe the Pacific and Okhotsk tectonic plates had been pinned together for a long time, perhaps 500 to 1,000 years.

– The area just south of where the fault slipped in March, which is close to Tokyo, should be a focus area for researchers because they do not have data on the area and don’t know yet what it might do in the future.

The Okhotsk Plate is a tectonic plate covering the Sea of Okhotsk, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and Eastern Japan. It was formerly considered a part of the North American Plate, but recent studies indicate that it is an independent plate, bounded on the north by the North American Plate while to the east is the Pacific.

"This event is the best recorded great earthquake ever," says Mark Simons, professor of geophysics at Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory and lead author of the study. For Jean Paul Ampuero, assistant professor of seismology at Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory who studies earthquake dynamics, the most significant finding was that high- and low-frequency seismic waves can come from different areas of a fault.

"The high-frequency seismic waves in the Tohoku earthquake were generated much closer to the coast, away from the area of the slip where we saw low-frequency waves," he says. Simons says there are two factors controlling this behavior; one is because the largest amount of stress (which is what generates the highest-frequency waves) was found at the edges of the slip, not near the center of where the fault began to break.

He compares the finding to what happens when you rip a piece of paper in half. "The highest amounts of stress aren’t found where the paper has just ripped, but rather right where the paper has not yet been torn," he explains. "We had previously thought high-frequency energy was an indicator of fault slippage, but it didn’t correlate in our models of this event." Equally important is how the fault reacts to these stress concentrations; it appears that only the deeper segments of the fault respond to these stresses by producing high-frequency energy.