Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday:
Lihue, Kauai – 81
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 85 (record for Thursday – 90 in 2003)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 79
Molokai airport – 82
Kahului airport, Maui – 83
Kona airport 83
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 81
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Thursday evening:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 85
Hilo, Hawaii – 74
Haleakala Crater – 54 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 36 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Thursday afternoon:
0.86 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.08 Manoa Valley, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.55 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.60 Pahoa, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1031 millibar high pressure system…far to the northeast of our islands. Our local winds will be strengthening 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
Brisk trades, high and middle level clouds,
generally windward biased showers
The trade winds blowing across our islands will be quite strong through Saturday…backing off some Sunday into early next week. Glancing at this weather map, we find a 1031 millibar high pressure system located far to our northeast. This high pressure cell has an elongated ridge of high pressure draping southwest, putting it to the north of our islands. The placement of this high and its ridge will keep our trade winds stronger than usual into Saturday. These trade wind breezes, with their strong gusts up over 40 mph at times, will keep the small craft wind advisory alive across the entire state. The computer forecast models suggest that by later this weekend, into next week…our trades would ease up some.
Our trade winds will be rather strong and gusty…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Thursday evening:
31 Port Allen, Kauai – ENE
29 Waianae, Oahu – NE
29 Molokai – NE
33 Kahoolawe – ESE
36 Kahului, Maui – NE
05 Lanai – SE
42 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 Thursday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see those high and middle level clouds moving over the state, associated with the upper level low pressure system. The island of Kauai may get back under these upper clouds…as they slowly shift westward. We can use this looping satellite image to see areas of high level clouds over the islands, coming up from the south and east. We can also see somescattered lower level cumulus clouds to our east, being carried in our direction on the blustery trade wind flow. Checking out this looping radar image we see fairly light shower areas being carried along in the trade wind flow…although a couple were a bit heavier at the time of this writing.
I'm going to see a new film this evening called X-Men: First Class, starring James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender…among many others. This is a story of young professor X and Magneto, who use their extraordinary abilities to prevent nuclear armageddon. The critics are giving this action film a B grade, while the users are upping the anty to an A- rating. I'm in the mood to totally change my mind set, after such a long and intense work week, which I'm pretty sure this film will be able to do for me. I'll certainly let you know what I thought of it Friday morning, when I'll be back with your next weather narrative. Here's the trailer for you if you have any desire to take a quick look.
Sunset Commentary: As expected, the trade winds increased in strength today. This was evident even before sunrise this morning, which typically has the lightest winds of the day…when there was a 40 mph gust already blowing down at South Point on the Big Island. This afternoon we found gusts topping that 40 mph mark in those windiest places in both Maui County and the Big Island. As a result, the NWS has a small craft wind advisory covering all coastal and channel waters statewide.
These very breezy trades are expected to keep our local oceans filled with white caps well into the future, certainly through the next several days. The computer forecast models continue to show an easing up of all this air in a hurry Sunday into next week. The trade winds certainly won’t go away, not by a long shot, although will at least come down into more normal realms probably.
There's only a minor influence of the colder air aloft, associated with an upper level low pressure system over the state. There seems to be a fairly major dis-connect between that cold air up high, and the lower level warmth near the surface however. This is inhibiting the growth of cumulus up through a capping inversion layer of air. This in turn is keeping towering cumulus out of our area…and their attendant heavier showers.
The best place for showers now will continue to be along our north and east facing coasts and slopes, our windward sides. Part of what is limiting the upward growth of our cumulus clouds is the layer of cirrus above, restricting the daytime heating influence, and of course the strength of our horizontally moving air flow. Perhaps the most likely place for a few heavier showers will be in the leeward side of the Big Island, sheltered from the strong trades.
Here in Kihei, Maui at 535pm Thursday evening, skies were partly cloudy, with still a little bit of thin high cirrus around the edges. It's been such a big week in terms of work, my goodness! I must say that I'm looking forward to having the next three days off, due to the Hawaiian holiday Friday. As I was mentioning above, I'm going to see a film this evening, which will allow me to let off some steam after an intense work week. I'll catch up with you in the morning, please be well until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Extra: There's still a little snow atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island Thursday evening…although its melting fast!
Interesting: Dog owners often attest to their canine companion's seeming ability to read their minds. How do dogs they learn to beg for food or behave badly primarily when we're not looking? According to Monique Udell and her team, from the University of Florida in the US, the way that dogs come to respond to the level of people's attentiveness tells us something about the ways dogs think and learn about human behavior.
Their research, published online in Springer's journal Learning & Behavior, suggests it is down to a combination of specific cues, context and previous experience. Recent work has identified a remarkable range of human-like social behaviors in the domestic dog, including their ability to respond to human body language, verbal commands, and to attentional states.
The question is, how do they do it? Do dogs infer humans' mental states by observing their appearance and behavior under various circumstances and then respond accordingly? Or do they learn from experience by responding to environmental cues, the presence or absence of certain stimuli, or even human behavioral cues?
Udell and colleagues' work sheds some light on these questions. Udell and team carried out two experiments comparing the performance of pet domestic dogs, shelter dogs and wolves given the opportunity to beg for food, from either an attentive person or from a person unable to see the animal.
They wanted to know whether the rearing and living environment of the animal (shelter or human home), or the species itself (dog or wolf), had the greater impact on the animal's performance. They showed, for the first time that wolves, like domestic dogs, are capable of begging successfully for food by approaching the attentive human.
This demonstrates that both species — domesticated and non-domesticated — have the capacity to behave in accordance with a human's attentional state. In addition, both wolves and pet dogs were able to rapidly improve their performance with practice. The authors also found that dogs were not sensitive to all visual cues of a human's attention in the same way.
In particular, dogs from a home environment rather than a shelter were more sensitive to stimuli predicting attentive humans. Those dogs with less regular exposure to humans performed badly on the begging task.
According to the researchers, "These results suggest that dogs' ability to follow human actions stems from a willingness to accept humans as social companions, combined with conditioning to follow the limbs and actions of humans to acquire reinforcement. The type of attentional cues, the context in which the command is presented, and previous experience are all important."
Interesting2: The hottest summer day you remember from childhood could be the norm in a few decades; in fact it looks like the heat has already been cranked up. "When scientists talk about global warming causing more heat waves, people often ask if that means that the hottest temperatures will become 'the new normal,'" said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford, in a press release.
"That got us thinking —- at what point can we expect the coolest seasonal temperatures to always be hotter than the historically highest temperatures for that season?" wondered Diffenbaugh. Diffenbaugh is lead author of a study to be published later this month in the journal Climate Change.
Stanford research assistant Martin Scherer co-authored the study. "According to our projections, large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that, by the middle of this century, even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years," said Diffenbaugh.
Within the next 20 to 60 years, if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise, summer temperatures are likely to rise irreversibly around the globe, with the tropics feeling the heat first, and parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas suffering unprecedented summer heat within the next two decades, according to Diffenbaugh's study. The middle latitudes, including Europe, China and the United States, will feel the heat within 60 years, they report.
Interesting3: The nation's first tidal energy power plant may take shape in New York’s East River, under a pilot project recommended for approval last month by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC"). In December 2010, Verdant Power applied for a license to install 30 underwater turbines between Roosevelt Island and Queens, which would enable tidal power to be sold over the national electric grid for the first time ever.
Tidal power represents an often-overlooked but growing renewable energy source, more predicable than wind or solar power, but often encumbered by high start-up costs. The strong, fluctuating currents in the East River — which is actually a tidal strait between the New York Harbor and the Long Island Sound — make this water body an ideal location for the generation of tidal energy.
Verdant previously tested six tidal turbines in the proposed project location; they were used to power a Gristedes supermarket and a parking garage on Roosevelt Island. The need for FERC licensing and other federal approvals triggered the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), requiring an analysis of the project’s significant, adverse environmental impacts. On May 3, FERC released an Environmental Assessment reporting no such impacts, thereby allowing the project to move forward without a more intensive Environmental Impact Statement.
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