Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / September 24-25, 2011

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday:  

Lihue, Kauai –                   85           
Honolulu airport, Oahu –   88   (record for Saturday – 93 in 1995)   
Kaneohe, Oahu –               83
Molokai airport –                84
Kahului airport, Maui –        86
Kona airport                      86  
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          84

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 6pm Saturday evening:

Port Allen, Kauai – 84
Kahului, Maui – 77

Haleakala Crater –     48 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 46 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)

Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Saturday evening:

0.05     Kilohana, Kauai
0.15     Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.00     Molokai
0.00     Lanai
0.00     Kahoolawe
0.18     West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.17     Honaunau, 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 fall weather…
tropically speaking

 

Our winds will be quite light into the new week ahead.  Glancing at this weather map, it shows a weak near 1020 millibar high pressure system to our east-northeast, with its associated ridge of high pressure running from its center, to just northeast of the islands. At the same time, we have a weakening cold front slipping southward towards Kauai…just to the north of the ridge. Our local trade winds will be lighter into Sunday. These winds will break down enough that we'll have daytime sea breezes, and offshore land breezes at night. 

Our winds will continuing blowing over the eastern islands, only lighter…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Saturday evening: 

14                Lihue, Kauai – NE 
18                Bellows, Oahu – NE
20                Molokai – NE
21                   Kahoolawe – ESE
15                Kahului, Maui – NE 
16                Lanai – NE
20                Upolu Point, Big Island – ENE
 

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Saturday evening. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find just a few low clouds generally offshore of the islands, with the leading edge of a weak cold front to the north of Kauai. We can use this looping satellite image to see the low clouds moving along in the lighter trade wind flow. 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 anywhere

Sunset Commentary:  The trade winds are in the process of weakening, and will be lighter into the new week ahead. They may be nearly completely gone over Kauai and Oahu, or become slightly cooler northeast breezes, if the front pushes past that island into the Kauai Channel on Sunday. Maui County and the Big Island, being furthest south from our trade wind producing ridge, should hold onto slightly stronger trade winds. Despite the presence of these lighter trade winds, we’ll see daytime onshore flowing sea breezes developing locally, followed by offshore flowing land breezes at night. This light wind regime will continue through about next Tuesday or Wednesday. New information from the computer models shows a second cold front moving into the state later in the new week ahead, with east to southeast breezes taking over ahead of it. As this front moves through next Thursday or Friday, slightly cooler northeast breezes will follow in its wake next weekend.

The partial disruption of our early autumn trade winds, is due to the approach of the weakening cold front mentioned above. 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 a few showers over the Garden Island later on Sunday into Monday, and with luck, may be able to push its way to Oahu, for a few light showers on the north shore there. 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 with time. The second cold front, has a somewhat better chance of bringing more showers to the state around next Thursday or Friday.

Friday evening after work I went to see a new film called Drive, starring Ryan Gosling (one of my favorite new actors), Carey Mulligan, among many others. The love relationship between these two actors carried the film in such a big way, giving it a powerful contrast to all the violence…which just kept coming and coming.

It's about a wheelman for hire, who crosses the wrong people and finds himself tail-gated by a syndicate of deadly criminals. 

I "got in a bit over my head" with this film, and found myself slightly shaking in my seat, literally. It was so intense and gruesome in parts! The tenderness though, that got expressed between this man and woman, and her lovely son, was incredibly touching. It was the bridge over this very rough driving road.

I was off and on intimidated, and yet was fascinated by the incredible film work at the same time. It was a very special aspect of this film. It was so well directed and produced, with lots of unusual shots, really some of the best work I've seen in any film lately!

This film is absolutely not for everyone. There weren't many folks in the large theater that it showed in, and I can understand why. In a way, it reminded me of that film No Country for Old Men, which was rated as the best picture of the year, several years ago for its severity. I should add that if you're one of those types of people who especially enjoys these sorts of films…don't miss it friend! Here's a trailer, it was brilliant in many ways…for me personally!

Tears for Fears…Everyone wants to Rule the World music video

The Cars…Drive music video.

Here in Kula, Maui at around 5pm HST Saturday evening, skies were clear, with an air temperature of 73.4F degrees. Actually, looking in all directions, skies are mostly clear, which should remain the case through the night into Sunday morning. We have some great weather happening now, which isn't unusual for early autumn. I'm really enjoying my Saturday, and have nothing planned for this evening, which is fine with me. I've got some fresh fish, broccoli and fingerling potatoes for dinner. Maybe I'll have a drink and sit outside and watch the sunset. There aren't any high cirrus clouds around now, so it won't be one of those colorful ones that we sometimes have. At any rate, I hope you have a great Saturday night, and can check in again on Sunday. I'll have more information about this approaching cold front to the north of Kauai then, along with other stuff as well. Aloha for now…Glenn. 

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.