Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Friday:
Lihue, Kauai – 86
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 87
Kaneohe, Oahu – 81
Molokai airport – 84
Kahului airport, Maui – 88 (record for Friday – 96 in 1951)
Kona airport 85
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 Friday evening:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 86
Kaneohe, Oahu – 78
Haleakala Crater – 43 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 48 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Friday evening:
1.62 Kilohana, Kauai
0.85 Manoa Valley, Oahu
0.06 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.34 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.08 Mountain View, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1035 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…high
cirrus clouds approaching from the southwest
The trade winds will prevail through the rest of this week…becoming slightly lighter this weekend into early next week. Glancing at this weather map, we find a 1035 millibar high pressure system located to the north-northeast of the islands Friday afternoon. 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 Friday evening:
30 Port Allen, Kauai – ENE
27 Waianae, Oahu – NE
28 Molokai – NE
31 Kahoolawe – ESE
30 Kahului, Maui – NE
04 Lanai – W
30 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 Friday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find scattered lower level clouds, which are generally out over the ocean, although stretching over the islands, especially towards Kauai. At the same time we find an area of departing high cirrus clouds over the ocean to our east. 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. At the same time we find a potential large area of high cirrus not too far to our southwest…which may work its way to our islands over the next day or two. Checking out this looping radar image we see just a few light to moderately heavy showers being carried along in the trade wind flow, falling over the windward sides in places.
Sunset Commentary: There aren’t expected to be any major changes in our Hawaiian Island weather picture. As for minor differences from day to day, they will come and go, mostly in terms of wind speeds and rainfall amounts…what else is new? The computer models suggest maybe a slight slowdown in the trade winds this weekend into Monday or Tuesday…and then right back up thereafter. Today found the strongest winds of the week so far, with gusts up and over the 40 mph mark. These trade wind gusts were reaching 40 mph at the Kahoolawe anemometer, all the way up to 46 on our southernmost point…at South Point on the Big Island Friday afternoon.
Rainfall too has been up and down, although nothing that’s especially unusual. This precipitation has been falling most readily along our windward sides, again…what else is new? As has been the case for the last several weeks, our rainfall this time of year depends greatly upon just how much available moisture is located to our east through northeast. These offshore clouds of course get carried our way on the trade winds, as is shown on this looping satellite image. This animated satellite picture also shows a rather large area of high cirrus clouds being carried towards the islands, from the southwest. If they arrive, we'll see sun filtering during the days, providing varying degrees of muting. Otherwise, again there aren’t expected to be any major changes to our decent weather conditions through the weekend at least.
I'm going to see a new film this evening, this one called The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn…among many others. The impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950's following the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith. The critics are giving this film an impressive A-, while the viewers are much lower, handing out a rather luke warm C+. I'm rather interested to see what this wide gap is all about. I'll report back to you in the morning with not only my own grade, but also what I thought was going on here, if I can discern it. Here's a trailer for this long two hour and 18 minute film.
Here in Kihei, Maui, at around 530pm HST Friday evening, skies were clear for the most part, with a particularly lovely end of the day. I'm still watching closely those high cirrus clouds just down to our southwest. They may hold off on arriving until Saturday, a bit too late for today's sunset. Checking out this looping satellite image, and viewing those cirrus down to our southwest, they look pretty likely to arrive in my humble opinion. I'll catch up with you Saturday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a good Friday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Water really is everywhere. Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. Looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar — one of the brightest and most violent objects in the cosmos — the researchers have found a mass of water vapor that's at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the world's oceans combined, and 100,000 times more massive than the sun.
Because the quasar is so far away, its light has taken 12 billion years to reach Earth. The observations therefore reveal a time when the universe was just 1.6 billion years old. "The environment around this quasar is unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water," says Matt Bradford, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and a visiting associate at Caltech.
"It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times." Bradford leads one of two international teams of astronomers that have described their quasar findings in separate papers that have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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