Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Friday:
Lihue, Kauai – 86
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 89 (record for Friday – 93 in 1995)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 83
Molokai airport – 85
Kahului airport, Maui – 85
Kona airport 86
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 – 85
Hilo, Hawaii – 79
Haleakala Crater – 52 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 54 (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:
0.20 Mount Wailaleale, Kauai
0.25 Ahuimanu Loop, Oahu
0.09 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.03 Kahoolawe
0.50 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.25 Laupahoehoe, Big Island
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. This web cam is 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
Lighter winds, a few showers…nice weather
The trade winds will become softer as we move through the weekend…into early next week. Glancing at this weather map, it shows showing a ridge of high pressure just to the north and northeast of the islands. At the same time, we have a weakening cold front slipping southward towards Kauai. Our local trade winds will be lighter Saturday and Sunday. These trade winds will break down quite a bit this weekend, and remain light through the first couple of days of the new work week ahead. The trade winds will begin to rebound next Wednesday.
Our trade winds will remain active…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Friday evening:
28 Port Allen, Kauai – ENE
17 Honolulu, Oahu – NE
21 Molokai – NE
25 Kahoolawe – ESE
27 Kapalua, Maui – NE
17 Lanai – NE
25 Upolu 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 evening. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find just a few low clouds generally offshore of the islands, especially to the east through west. We can use this looping satellite image to see the low clouds moving along in the trade wind flow, which may increase some small bit…generally on Maui and the Big Island's windward sides. We can also see the aforementioned cold front to our north…slipping southwards towards Kauai. Checking out this looping radar image we see a very limited amount of showers coming in from the east-northeast.
Sunset Commentary: The trade winds were still blowing today, in the light to moderately strong range, as they have been all week. These winds are going to be coming down in strength soon, beginning Saturday, and losing even more ground Sunday. They may be nearly completely gone over Kauai, and almost gone over Oahu later this weekend too. Maui County and the Big Island, being furthest south from our trade wind producing ridge, which is still to our north, may hold onto light trade winds. Despite the presence of these lighter trade winds, we’ll see daytime onshore flowing sea breezes developing, followed by offshore flowing land breezes at night. This light wind regime will continue through about next Tuesday, and by Wednesday…the trade winds will surge back into the light to moderately strong realms. The lighter breezes will make it feel quite warm during the days, with slightly cooler air temperatures in the early morning hours too.
The partial disruption of these early autumn trade winds, are being dealt this hand by the approach of a weakening cold front. This early season frontal cloud band can be viewed best by glancing at this looping satellite picture….showing it to the north of Kauai. This first cold front of autumn is inching it’s way southward through the subtropical latitudes to our north. It seems quite likely that it will spread at least some showers over the Garden Island on Sunday, and with any extra luck, may be able to push its way to Oahu, for a few light showers there too. The other islands will be out of luck for showers directly associated with this frontal band. There is a chance of a few windward showers on those islands, and perhaps a few light showers over the leeward upcountry slopes on Maui and the Big Island during the afternoons too.
Here in Kihei, Maui at around 530pm HST Friday evening, skies were clear to partly cloudy, with the trade winds still blowing. I'm getting ready to head over to Kahului, to see a new film, this one called Drive, starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, among many others. I'm looking forward to seeing this action film, as it has been getting pretty good reviews. It's about a wheelman for hire, who crosses the wrong people and finds himself tailgated by a syndicate of deadly criminals. I know, I know this sounds pretty intense, and it likely will be just that. I'll of course have more to say about this film tomorrow morning, when I'll be back with my next new narrative. Here's a trailer for this intense film, in case you wanted to see what I'll be sitting through in the theater tonight. Ok, I'm heading out now, and hope you have a great Friday until early Saturday morning. Aloha for now…Glenn.
Extra: The Living Bridge … video
Interesting: Coral reefs will be gone by the end of the century, according to a top UN Scientist. This would give coral reefs the dubious accolade of being the first entire ecosystem to have been destroyed by human activity.
In the recently published book 'Our Dying Planet', Professor Peter Sale writes that coral reef ecosystems are very likely to disappear by the end of this century, in what would be "a new first for mankind — the 'extinction' of an entire ecosystem".
Sale, who leads a team at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, reports that the decline in coral reefs is mainly due to climate change and ocean acidification.
Other activities, including overfishing, pollution and coastal development, have also had a devastating impact on the worl's coral reefs. "We're creating a situation where the organisms that make coral reefs are becoming so compromised by what we're doing that many of them are going to be extinct, and the others are going to be very, very rare," says Sale.
The use of fossil fuels and the resulting carbon emissions, which contribute to climate change, are thought to be the biggest cause of the rapid decline in coral reefs. Climate change has led to increased ocean surface temperatures, putting reef species under enormous stress and leading to coral bleaching.
Ocean acidification — caused by the oceans absorbing increased amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — is also an increasing threat, making it harder for reef organisms to retrieve the minerals needed to build their skeletons.
Although around 20% of coral reefs have already been lost in the past few decades, the authors of 'Our Dying Planet' are careful to stress that the corals themselves may well survive the effects of human activities and the destruction they cause.
"Although corals are ancient animals and have been around for hundreds of millions of years, there have been periods of reefs, and periods where there are no reefs," explains Mark Spalding, of the US-based environmental group Nature Conservancy and the University of Cambridge.
"When climatic conditions are right they build these fantastic structures, but when they're not they wait in the wings, in little refuges, as a rather obscure invertebrate."
Interesting2: For years, the Pentagon has been saying that climate change is perhaps the biggest threat to American security of all. Back in 2004, a report commissioned by Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall, the man behind the restructuring of the US military under Donald Rumsfeld, predicted that "abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies."
The report went on to declare that the threat to global stability posed by climate change was indeed greater than that of terrorism. Ironically, while climate change denial seems to be a communal oath among right wing politicians, folks in the military that they so staunchly support, are busy preparing for it, both strategically and tactically.
Retired Rear Admiral Dennis McGinn has called climate change a threat multiplier. Most of the coverage of the subject has focused on natural forces, not military ones as a threat to our continued existence. Should we be concerned about this?
Will the Pentagon's prediction come true? According to Christian Parenti, the author of the newly released book Tropic of Chaos, it already has. Parenti says that climate change is causing violence around the world right now, particularly in the global South.
The book "looks at the intersection of the legacy of cold war militarism, free market economic restructuring and the onset of anthropogenic climate change" and traces how these factors, with particular emphasis on the latter as a kind of socio-economic last straw, create the conditions for increased civil war, religious war, banditry and increased violence. He suggests the best way to deal with this violence is to mitigate the exacerbating condition.
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