Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday:
Lihue, Kauai – 84
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 87 (record for Thursday – 91 in 1979, 1986, 2004)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Molokai airport – 83
Kahului airport, Maui – 84
Kona airport 83
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 Thursday evening:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 86
Kaneohe, Oahu – 76
Haleakala Crater – 48 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 39 (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:
0.07 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.52 Manoa Valley, Oahu
0.10 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
2.52 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.78 Glenwood, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a very strong 1040 millibar high pressure system to the north of our islands. Our local trade winds will remain active through Saturday.
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. Here's a tropical cyclone tracking map for the eastern and central Pacific.
Aloha Paragraphs
Trade winds, passing windward showers…
generally nice weather prevails
The trade winds will prevail through the rest of this week…becoming slightly lighter Sunday into early next week. Glancing at this weather map, we find an unusually strong 1040 millibar high pressure system located to the north-northeast of the islands Thursday night. This very large high pressure cell dominates the Pacific, from the western Pacific, across the central into the eastern Pacific…and from the Gulf of Alaska to the Baja California coast of Mexico. We still have limited small craft wind advisories covering those windiest channels and coasts around Maui County and the Big Island.
Our trade winds will remain active…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions early Thursday evening:
30 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
22 Waianae, Oahu – NE
31 Molokai – NE
33 Kahoolawe – ESE
31 Kahului, Maui – NE
18 Lanai – NE
31 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 find scattered lower level clouds, which are generally out over the ocean to our east, although stretching over the islands too. At the same time we find an area of high cirrus clouds over the ocean in various directions. We can use this looping satellite image to see lower level clouds being carried along in the trade wind flow. There's also a counterclockwise rotating upper level low pressure system to our west, producing some thunderstorms. Checking out this looping radar image we see light showers being carried along in the trade wind flow, falling over the windward sides…especially over the central islands over Oahu at the time of this writing.
Sunset Commentary: Little in the way of change is in store for our islands, in terms of the fairly normal trade wind weather pattern. Despite the very strong 1040 millibar high pressure system far to our north, our associated trade winds aren’t that far from the norm for July. There have been a few 40 mph gusts over the last three days, although those have been the extremes. At the time of this writing, around 6pm Thursday evening, the strongests gust around the state were 32 mph at several places around the state. Moderately strong winds seem to be the rule, which will likely remain in place through the extended forecast period. The computer models have been trying to advertise a lighter wind field moving over us early next week, although they seem to have backed off on that to some degree for the time being.
Rainfall continues to come and go along our north and east facing windward coasts and slopes. The islands of Oahu was on the receiving end of these showery clouds this evening. Kauai and the Big Island are on the dry side of our precipitation spectrum for now. As we push into the night, we’ll likely see the usual diurnal increase in windward biased showers. Looking a bit further ahead, there’s nothing to catch our attention through most of the rest of the week, at least in terms of out of the ordinary rainfall periods. The computer models have been wanting to bring an upper level low pressure system close to the islands early next week. If this actually happens, we could see a corresponding increase in windward showers again then, time will tell.
Here in Kihei, Maui, at around 530pm HST Thursday evening, skies were partly cloudy, like they have been most of the day. The trade winds have been blowing all day, well, what else is new! I'm running late this evening, so had better call it a day right now. I will however be back dark and early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: In an article that may bring smiles to the faces of vegetarians who consume no dairy products and vegans, who consume no animal-based foods, scientists have identified seaweed as a rich new potential source of heart-healthy food ingredients. Seaweed and other "macroalgae" could rival milk products as sources of these so-called "bioactive peptides," they conclude in an article in ACS's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Maria Hayes and colleagues Ciarán Fitzgerald, Eimear Gallagher and Deniz Tasdemir note increased interest in using bioactive peptides, now obtained mainly from milk products, as ingredients in so-called functional foods. Those foods not only provide nutrition, but have a medicine-like effect in treating or preventing certain diseases.
Seaweeds are a rich but neglected alternative source, they state, noting that people in East Asian and other cultures have eaten seaweed for centuries: Nori in Japan, dulse in coastal Europe, and limu palahalaha in native Hawaiian cuisine.
Their review of almost 100 scientific studies concluded that that some seaweed proteins work just like the bioactive peptides in milk products to reduce blood pressure almost like the popular ACE inhibitor drugs.
"The variety of macroalga species and the environments in which they are found and their ease of cultivation make macroalgae a relatively untapped source of new bioactive compounds, and more efforts are needed to fully exploit their potential for use and delivery to consumers in food products," Hayes and her colleagues conclude.
Interesting2: Organic produce and pasture based meat and dairy have less of an environmental impact than their conventionally produced counterparts, a recently released report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found. Titled A Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health, the report includes lifecycle assessments of 20 popular types of meat, dairy and vegetable proteins.
The cradle-to-grave carbon footprint of each food item based on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated before and after the food leaves the farm is included in the assessments. The life cycle assessments are based on conventionally produced meat and not pasture-based or organically produced.
"We focused on conventionally produced, grain-fed meat because that is mostly what Americans eat," the report states. However, the report does assess environmental impacts of organic and pasture based meat and dairy.
"Meat, eggs and dairy products that are certified organic, humane and/or grass-fed are generally the least environmentally damaging (although a few studies of the impact on climate show mixed results for grass-fed versus confined-feedlot meat," according to the report.
"Overall, these products are the least harmful, most ethical choices." Producing the grain fed to livestock takes lots of cropland, pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer to produce. Grain production takes 149 million acres of cropland, 167 million pounds of pesticides and 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer to produce.
When nitrogen fertilizer is applied to soil it generates nitrous oxide, which has a warming effect 300 times that of carbon. Feed production also costs taxpayers as feed crops are "heavily subsidized" by taxpayers through the Farm Bill. Taxpayer subsidies for feed crops cost taxpayers $45 billion over the last decade.
Interesting3: Small fish play a big role in the oceans and catches should be cut sharply to safeguard marine food chains from plankton to blue whales, an international team of experts said on Thursday. Rising human exploitation of little fish — including anchovy, sardine, herring, mackerel and capelin — had had far less attention in marine research compared to big commercial species such as cod, tuna, swordfish or salmon, they said.
Over-fishing of small fish has "significant effects on other parts of the marine ecosystems," said Tony Smith, the lead author of the study at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia. He said that the findings, published in the journal Science, were the first comprehensive analysis of how catching small fish, as well as shrimp-like krill, can disrupt marine food chains and so affect human food supplies.
Little fish play a pivotal role since they mainly eat tiny plankton and are in turn food for predators such as large fish, whales or seabirds. Small fish account for more than 30 percent of world fish production and are a key food source for many people in developing nations.
The scientists, who used computer models to study stocks of small fish off Peru, the California current, southern Africa, the North Sea and Australia, suggested that catches of should be cut sharply, perhaps backed up by no-fishing zones. They said some stocks were harmed even by a level of catches known as the "maximum sustainable yield" (MSY) of a stock.
"Halving exploitation rates would result in much lower impacts on marine ecosystems, while still achieving 80 percent of MSY," the study said.
FISHMEAL
Smith told Reuters said that lower fishing rates would probably bring long-term economic benefits, as well as helping recovery of other, larger species that have been in decline due to over-fishing. Smith and other experts in the United States, Britain, South Africa, France, Peru and Australia said that small fish — were often ground up into fishmeal as feed for livestock or for farmed fish. About 10 to 20 percent were consumed by people.
Big catches of small fish often had damaging effects even though it might benefited other creatures lower down the food web, such as plankton, jellyfish or squid. It said that a complicating factor was that there were often big natural variations in fish stocks, such as in numbers of anchovies or sardines off Mexico.
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