Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday:
Lihue, Kauai – 85
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 86
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – 84
Kahului airport, Maui – 87 (record for Wednesday – 92 in 1981)
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:
Kahului, Maui – 83
Kaneohe, Oahu – 78
Haleakala Crater – 48 (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:
0.77 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.31 Nuuanu Upper, Oahu
0.04 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.57 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.36 Piihonua, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems to the north through northeast of our islands. Our local trade winds will remain active…becoming stronger and gusty 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. Here's a tropical cyclone tracking map for the eastern and central Pacific.
Aloha Paragraphs
Trade wind weather pattern…Large south swell
High Surf Advisory south shores
The trade winds will continue blowing, gradually increasing Thursday and Friday…then gradually easing up over the weekend into early next week. Glancing at this weather map, we find our primary high pressure systems located to the north through northeast Wednesday night. The location of these high pressure centers, and their associated ridges, will keep our trade winds blowing…becoming stronger through Friday. The summits on Maui and the Big Island now have an active wind advisory, where winds of 30-40 mph are expected through Thursday afternoon.
Our trade winds will remain active…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions early Wednesday evening:
35 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
31 Honolulu, Oahu – NE
25 Molokai – NE
32 Kahoolawe – NE
36 Kahului, Maui – NE
21 Lanai – NE
32 South Point, Big Island – NNW
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 find a line of lower level cumulus clouds pushing in our direction from the northeast. We can use this looping satellite image to see low clouds being carried towards our windward sides by the trade winds. We can see relatively small area of high and middle level clouds over the ocean just to the southwest…pushing into the state around Kauai and Oahu. There are more extensive higher level clouds far to our northwest, west, southwest and finally to the south. Checking out this looping radar image we see quite a few showers being carried along in the northeast to easterly trade wind flow…moving into the windward sides locally.
Sunset Commentary: The trades will be somewhat stronger than normal through Friday, with small craft wind advisories active in those windiest coastal and channel waters around Maui County and the Big Island. As an example of our gusty trade winds around the state Wednesday afternoon, we had 36 mph winds blowing at the Kahului airport…with 32 mph at South Point down on the Big Island. The winds may become somewhat stronger into Friday, with a gradually easing up this weekend into early next week.
Showery clouds will ride in on these gusty trades from time to time…especially at night along our windward coasts and slopes. There aren’t expected to be anything extraordinary in terms of their intensity or reach. The computer models have however been suggesting that cold air arriving aloft, in association with an upper level low pressure system towards the weekend…could prompt heavier showers. This time of year, during our early summer months, aren’t well known for their heavy showers. That being said however, this year hasn’t been exactly a normal one in terms of weather conditions. So, we’ll see what happens by Sunday afternoon into the first day or two of next week.
The surf remained up today along our south and west facing leeward beaches. A high surf advisory is in effect across all of those beaches, which will last into Thursday. The waves may drop a little going into Thursday, as this first swell fades a little. A second south swell will bring the surf up again later Thursday into Friday…with a potential gradual lowering as we push into the weekend. This swell is large enough that our local visitors, and even our own local residents, need to be careful when getting into the ocean where these larger than normal waves are breaking. This is quite common during our summer season, as early winter storms in the southern hemisphere send us these south swell episodes.
Here in Kihei, Maui at 530pm HST Wednesday evening, skies were clear to partly cloudy, which made for yet another nice day here in the islands. It looks likely that the windward sides are finding another area of increased showers arriving, which may keep showers falling at times into Thursday morning. I'm heading back upcountry now, and will meet you here early Thursday morning, when I'll have your next new narrative waiting. I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Governor Brian Schweitzer vowed on Tuesday to cling to Exxon Mobil like "the smell on a skunk" for as long as it takes to get the company to clean up a weekend oil spill that fouled an otherwise pristine stretch of the Yellowstone River in Montana. A 12-inch Exxon pipeline ruptured on Friday night about 150 miles downstream from Yellowstone National Park near the town of Laurel, Montana, southwest of Billings, dumping up to 1,000 barrels, or 42,000 gallons, of crude oil into the flood-swollen river.
Toxic fumes from the oil overcame a number of people who reported breathing problems and dizziness and were taken to local hospitals. But state and federal officials on Tuesday said they lacked a tally of health problems or the number of riverside homes that were evacuated after the accident.
Exxon officials said shoreline oil contamination extended at least 25 miles downstream but appeared to be confined mostly to scattered pockets along the river. The company said water pipes for municipal drinking supplies to the city of Billings and suburban Lockwood were reopened after a precautionary shut down for a few hours just after the spill.
But Schweitzer said dozens of landowners have been affected so far and that a "great deal of oil" had washed into low-lying areas along the banks of the Yellowstone. "These riparian, lowland areas, these wetlands are the health of these rivers," he said, adding that the full extent and scope of contamination remains to be seen.
He said trace amounts of oil already had been swept hundreds of miles downstream into the Missouri River and beyond. About 350 cleanup personnel were working along the Yellowstone on Tuesday, using oil-absorbent materials to blot up as much crude as possible, according to Exxon and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is overseeing the operation.
Interesting2: Although several months have passed since the devastating earthquake and tsunami occurred in Japan, the resulting nuclear power plant crisis, and the effect on the world environment is still far from over. The health risks caused by the meltdown of nuclear fuel rods in at least three reactors actually melting down will be felt for hundreds of years to come.
The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster has been a clarion call for anti-nuclear activists from all over the world. One of these activists Dr. Helen Caldicott, is not prepared to be quiet as to the impact that this latest nuclear plant disaster will have on the world environment.
Dr. Caldicott, a pediatric physician by profession and Australian by nationality, has been involved for the past 33 years in trying to make people aware of the dangers of nuclear energy. Dr Caldicott has been awarded 20 honorary doctoral degrees and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling.
She was awarded the Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom in 2003, and in 2006, the Peace Organization of Australia presented her with the inaugural Australian Peace Prize "for her longstanding commitment to raising awareness about the medical and environmental hazards of the nuclear age".
The Smithsonian Institution has named her as "one of the most outstanding women of the 20th Century". What Dr. Caldicott is trying to impress upon us is that the effects of the radiation "leakage" from this disaster are ones that will not go away in a matter of months, or even years. Some forms of radiation, she says, will last for hundreds of years and will continue to cause various forms of cancer, birth defects, and other health problems for generations to come.
Interesting3: A new film launching on July 15th gives an in-depth look inside the clandestine world of environmental direct action. 'Taking tea is what the British do whenever they are in a difficult circumstance', says Marina Pepper, obsessive tea maker, community activist and domestic extremist. She's served tea to bailiffs, the police, politicians, and factory workers.
What makes her a domestic extremist is that she 'cares passionately about politics on a global level but works on it on a local level' but has 'gone well beyond, in my climate change activities recycling and walking the kids to school. I put my body in the way and I don't mind being arrested'. Just Do It, a film that launches in London on July 15th, is a close-up look at environmental direct action.
It explores the question of why people like Marina do what they do. While mainstream media often portray them as violent hooligans and tend to sensationalize their actions as dangerous to the general public, the truth is far from this, and Just Do It puts a human face on the people whose actions are, depending on your standpoint, courageous, empowering, inexcusable, or frightening.
It tells the story of Sally, another character in the film, a Cambridge student who grapples with the prospect of getting arrested as she chains herself to Lord Mandelson's house to raise awareness of the closing of a wind turbine factory. Or Oscar, who just wants to do something, not content, 'just watching the world go to [s@#$]'. Be they students, professionals, parents, their circumstances are varied but what they all share is a sense of urgency to do something about climate change.
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