Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / September 9-10, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   85           
Honolulu airport, Oahu –   88 (record for Friday – 91 in 1983)   
Kaneohe, Oahu –               83
Molokai airport –                85
Kahului airport, Maui –        87 
Kona airport                      85  
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          85

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Friday afternoon:

Honolulu, Oahu – 84
Kapalua, Maui – 80

Haleakala Crater –     59 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 52 (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:

0.32     Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.29     Nuuanu Upper, Oahu
0.06     Molokai
0.00     Lanai
0.00     Kahoolawe
0.73     Puu Kukui, Maui
0.22     Kealakekua, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1029 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of our islands…with its ridge extending southwest to the north of Kauai. Our local trade winds will gradually increasing Saturday and Sunday.

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 picking up this weekend –
Surf rising on our north and west shores /
High surf advisory for south shores
 
 

The trade winds will gradually increase today into the weekend…and beyond.  Glancing at this weather map, we find a near 1029 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of our islands.  A high pressure ridge runs southwest from its center, to the north of the state. The forecast continues to suggest that our winds will be on the increase well into next week. 

Our trade winds will be picking back up now…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Friday evening: 

22                Port Allen, Kauai – ENE 
22                Honolulu, Oahu – NE
20                Molokai – NE 
25                Kahoolawe – ESE
22                Kahului, Maui – NE
10                Lanai – NE  
28                   Upolu airport, 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 afternoon. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find scattered clouds in all directions…mostly over the ocean at the time of this writing. We can use this looping satellite image to see the low clouds moving along in the strengthening easterly trade wind flow…with thunderstorms and high clouds situated well offshore from Hawaii. Checking out this looping radar image we see some showers around…falling mostly over the ocean offshore from the islands, arriving along our windward sides here and there.

Sunset Commentary:  The high pressure ridge is still pretty close by, to the north of Kauai again this evening, as shown on this weather map. This zigzag orange line on the map extends southwest from several high pressure systems, located offshore from Crescent City, California and Astoria, Oregon. Not far to the north of this ridge remains our dissipating cold front. The expectation is that the front will go away, allowing the ridge to migrate northward slowly. This will open up the flood gates to an increase in trade wind speeds. Already today we’re finding winds gusting-up into the mid 20 mph’s on Oahu and Kahoolawe, and between 25 and almost 30 mph down on the Big Island…early this evening.

These trade winds should finally get a more firm toe hold this weekend, and then continue to remain in action through most of the next week. There have been indications lately that they could reach small craft wind advisory levels around Tuesday or Wednesday. During the month of September we have the trade winds blowing, on average, about 83% of the time…having come down from 94% of the time during August. As usual, the strongest part the diurnal pattern takes place from late mornings through early evenings, lightest at night into the early mornings.

As for precipitation, there will be some, although not very much for the time being. Anytime that the trade winds pick up, we usually see a corresponding increase in passing showers, along our windward sides. The forecast models, based on various parameters, suggest that rainfall will be variable in both coverage and intensity through the next week. The best chance for the widest coverage and intensity could be after the upcoming weekend…through the middle of the new week. As usual this time of year, the windward sides will pick up the most precipitation.

The surf will be our headline weather news for the most part, at least through the weekend.  Our local beaches will have active surf, the largest of which will be along our south and north facing shores. A late winter storm in the southern hemisphere late last week, generated a large south swell. This will be impacting our leeward beaches, and has triggered a high surf advisory. The big storm that has been spinning in the Gulf of Alaska this week, has sent a moderately large north-northwest swell in our direction too. It will keep our north and west shores full of breaking waves today…although below the high surf advisory level. 

I'm heading out to Kahului soon, to take in a new film, this one called Conan The Barbarian, starring Jason Momoa and Rachel Nichols…among many others. I wasn't going to see this film, as I thought it would be too whatever, although two people told me that it wasn't over the top in terms of killing. I'm a little anxious, but have decided to take a chance. The synopsis: the savage Cimmerian warrior is the only hope of saving the nations of Hyboria from an encroaching reign of supernatural evil.  The critics certainly weren't thrilled, as they gave it a very luke warm C grade, while the viewers provided an improved B rating. I'll of course give you my opinion tomorrow morning, when I get back online. Here's the trailer just in case you are the slightest bit interested…which you probably won't be!

Here in Kihei, Maui at 530pm HST Friday evening, skies were clear to partly cloudy, with generally light to almost moderately strong trade wind breezes. Ok, I'll admit it, I'm looking forward to getting off work, and moving into the weekend. I'll get some light dinner at Whole Foods, and sit outside to enjoy the view of the West Maui Mountains while I eat. I sometimes run into friends while doing that, which is nice.  I'm leaving Kihei now, heading to Kahului, I hope you have a great Friday night yourself, and can meet me back here in the morning!
 
Interesting:  A team of leading marine scientists from around the world is recommending an end to most commercial fishing in the deep sea, Earth's largest ecosystem. Instead, they recommend fishing in more productive waters nearer to consumers. In a comprehensive analysis published online in the journal Marine Policy, marine ecologists, fisheries biologists, economists, mathematicians and international policy experts show that, with rare exceptions, deep-sea fisheries are unsustainable.

The "Sustainability of deep-sea fisheries" study, funded mainly by the Lenfest Ocean Program, comes just before the UN decides whether to continue allowing deep-sea fishing in international waters, which the UN calls "high seas." Life is mostly sparse in the oceans' cold depths, far from the sunlight that fuels photosynthesis.

Food is scarce and life processes happen at a slower pace than near the sea surface. Some deep-sea fishes live more than a century; some deep-sea corals can live more than 4,000 years. When bottom trawlers rip life from the depths, animals adapted to life in deep-sea time can't repopulate on human time scales.

Powerful fishing technologies are overwhelming them. "The deep sea is the world's worst place to catch fish" says marine ecologist Dr. Elliott Norse, the study's lead author and President of the Marine Conservation Institute in Bellevue, Washington USA. "Deep-sea fishes are especially vulnerable because they can't repopulate quickly after being overfished."

The deep sea provides less than 1% of the world's seafood. But fishing there, especially bottom trawling, causes profound, lasting damage to fishes and life on the seafloor, such as deep-sea corals, these experts say. Since the 1970s, when coastal fisheries were overexploited, commercial fishing fleets have moved further offshore and into deeper waters.

Some now fish more than a mile deep. "Because these fish grow slowly and live a long time, they can only sustain a very low rate of fishing," says author Dr. Selina Heppell, a marine fisheries ecologist at Oregon State University. "On the high seas, it is impossible to control or even monitor the amount of fishing that is occurring.

The effects on local populations can be devastating." The authors document the collapse of many deep-sea fishes around the world, including sharks and orange roughy. Other commercially caught deep-sea fishes include grenadiers (rattails) and blue ling. "Fifty years ago no one ate orange roughy," said author Dr. Daniel Pauly, a fisheries biologist with the University of British Columbia (UBC).

"In fact, it used to be called slimehead, indicating no one ever thought we would eat it. But as we've overfished our coastal species, that changed and so did the name." Orange roughy take 30 years to reach sexual maturity and can live 125 years. Compared with most coastal fishes, they live in slow-motion.

Unfortunately for them and the deep-sea corals they live among, they can no longer hide from industrial fishing. "Fishing for orange roughy started in New Zealand and grew rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s. However, most of the fisheries were overexploited, and catch levels have either been dramatically reduced or the fisheries closed all together," says author Dr. Malcolm Clark, a New Zealand-based fisheries biologist.

"The same pattern has been repeated in Australia, Namibia, the SW Indian Ocean, Chile and Ireland. It demonstrates how vulnerable deep-sea fish species can be to overfishing and potential stock collapse." There are very few exceptions to unsustainable deep-sea fisheries around the world. One is the Azores fishery for black scabbardfish.

There the Portuguese government has banned bottom trawling, which overfished black scabbardfish elsewhere. Azores fish are caught sustainably with hook and line gear from small boats. In most deep sea-fisheries, however, trawlers fish outside of nations' 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones, outside of effective government control.

"Deep-sea fisheries can be sustainable only where the fish population grows quickly and fisheries are small-scale and use gear that don't destroy fish habitat," said Dr. Norse. "With slow-growing fish, there's economic incentive to kill them all and reinvest the money elsewhere to get a higher return-on-investment.

Killing off life in the deep sea one place after another isn't good for our oceans or economies. Boom-and-bust fisheries are more like mining than fishing," Dr. Norse said. The lawlessness of the high seas adds to overfishing in the deep.

So do nations' fisheries subsidies. High seas trawlers receive some $162 million each year in government handouts, which amounts to 25% the value of the fleet's catch, according to Dr. Rashid Sumaila, an author and fisheries economist at UBC.

The authors of this Marine Policy paper say that the best policy would be to end economically wasteful deep-sea fisheries, redirect subsidies to help displaced fishermen and rebuild fish populations in productive waters closer to ports and markets, places far more conducive to sustainable fisheries.

"Instead of overfishing the Earth's biggest but most vulnerable ecosystem, nations should recover fish populations and fish in more productive coastal waters," says Dr. Norse. "Deep-sea fishes are in deep trouble almost everywhere we look. Governments shouldn't be wasting taxpayers' money by keeping unsustainable fisheries afloat."