Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday:
Lihue, Kauai – 78
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 84 (record high for the date – 88 in 1959)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – 80
Kahului airport, Maui 83
Kona airport 83
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 6pm Tuesday evening:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 80
Kapalua, Maui – 73
Haleakala Crater – 43 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea – 37 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Tuesday evening:
1.56 Kilohana, Kauai
2.00 Manoa – Kanewai, Oahu
0.10 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.38 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.33 Kawainui Stream, 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 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. The Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui just came back online, after being on the blink for several weeks.
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
Gusty trade winds, windward showers…a
few on the leeward sides
As this weather map shows, we find a 1022 millibar high pressure system located to the east-northeast of the Hawaiian Islands, with a second 1027 millibar high pressure cell to our northwest Tuesday night. At the same time, there’s a trough of low pressure far out to the west of Hawaii. Our trade winds remain strong and gusty, and will remain so into mid-week. The computer models continue to suggest that our local trades will decrease on Thanksgiving Day into Friday. They go on to tell us that our strong and gusty trade winds will ride in again behind a cold front this weekend…into early next week.
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions Tuesday evening:
22 Puu Lua, Kauai, Kauai – ENE
40 Makua Range, Oahu – SE
30 Molokai – NNE
33 Kahoolawe – E
31 Kahului, Maui – NE
40 Lanai – NE
37 PTA Keamuku, Big Island – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Tuesday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find that high and middle level cloudiness is located just to the south of the state again. We can use this looping satellite image to see low clouds being carried westward in the gusty trade wind flow. Checking out this looping radar image we see showers falling locally over the ocean, although with more windward biased showers falling on Maui and the Big Island…which will reach up towards Oahu and Kauai before morning.
Sunset Commentary: We had a pretty nice sunny day for a change, as the recent bout of high and middle level clouds finally slid away. We may see these clouds return soon, as they are looming again just to our south. We had an area of showers wet the windward sides last night, although they cleared the state nicely during the day, and thus the generally clear skies prevailed for the most part. Those showers last night didn’t bring all that much rainfall, although there were several of those most shower prone windward locations that received 1.00″+ totals…with a 2.00″ accumulation in the Koolau Mountains on Oahu as a top figure.
Speaking a bit more about precipitation going forward, Wednesday will remain quite pleasant, as will Thanksgiving Day through Friday. The next scheduled frontal boundary will arrive Saturday morning on Kauai, and slide down through the island chain, or at least partially so. This isn’t expected to be all that big a deal, although showers will arrive. As we move into Saturday night, considerably drier and cooler air will flood in behind the cold front. Sunday should be a decent day, although perhaps feel slightly cooler than it has been lately. This drier and slightly cooler air may present us with a fire danger, as the trade winds will be blustery then into early next week.
Speaking of the winds, they will rush in behind the cold front this weekend, and may push ahead of the leading edge of the front as early as Friday night. A new high pressure system to our north will be the source of these strengthening trade winds this weekend. The current small craft advisories south of Oahu may last into mid-week, although could be dropped on the Thanksgiving holiday and Friday. It looks very likely that the trade winds will be strong and gusty enough by the weekend, that small craft wind advisories will definitely be needed, perhaps even wind advisories in those typically windiest Maui County and Big Island locations. These winds will stick around into early next week at least.
As I was mentioning here yesterday, we have a very strong hurricane occurring in the eastern Pacific, at least for so late in the hurricane season. Hurricane Kenneth is being rated as a category 4 hurricane, which is quite rare even during the heart of our hurricane season. It being so late in the year, with only eight more days until the end point of the season, November 30…this is being called a rare occurrence. This hurricane is the strongest late season hurricane in the eastern Pacific since records began back in the 1800′s! Despite the very impressive power that this hurricane is wielding over the Pacific, the fortunate thing is that no islands or land masses are being effected.
Here in Kula, Maui at around 630pm Tuesday evening we have partly to mostly cloudy skies, with an air temperature of 64.2F degrees. The reason that this update is an hour later than usual, was that my website server went down for several hours, so I came home to Kula to do this work, rather than doing it in Kihei after work. As such, I'm running late for my evening walk, and then to have dinner, before heading to bed for a short period of reading, and then sleep. I'll be up very early again Wednesday, in order to prepare your next new weather narrative, which will be available around 530am HST. I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Researchers the world over are seeking reliable ways to predict earthquakes, focusing on identifying seismic precursors that, if detected early enough, could serve as early warnings. New research, published this week in the journal Applied Physics Letters, suggests that ozone gas emitted from fracturing rocks could serve as an indicator of impending earthquakes.
Ozone is a natural gas, a byproduct of electrical discharges into the air from several sources, such as from lightning, or, according to the new research, from rocks breaking under pressure. Scientists in the lab of Raúl A. Baragiola, a professor of engineering physics in the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science set up experiments to measure ozone produced by crushing or drilling into different igneous and metamorphic rocks, including granite, basalt, gneiss, rhyolite and quartz.
Different rocks produced different amounts of ozone, with rhyolite producing the strongest ozone emission. Some time prior to an earthquake, pressures begin to build in underground faults. These pressures fracture rocks, and presumably, would produce detectable ozone.
To distinguish whether the ozone was coming from the rocks or from reactions in the atmosphere, the researchers conducted experiments in pure oxygen, nitrogen, helium and carbon dioxide. They found that ozone was produced by fracturing rocks only in conditions containing oxygen atoms, such as air, carbon dioxide and pure oxygen molecules, indicating that it came from reactions in the gas.
This suggests that rock fractures may be detectable by measuring ozone. Baragiola began the study by wondering if animals, which seem — at least anecdotally — to be capable of anticipating earthquakes, may be sensitive to changing levels of ozone, and therefore able to react in advance to an earthquake.
It occurred to him that if fracturing rocks create ozone, then ozone detectors might be used as warning devices in the same way that animal behavioral changes might be indicators of seismic activity.
He said the research has several implications. "If future research shows a positive correlation between ground-level ozone near geological faults and earthquakes, an array of interconnected ozone detectors could monitor anomalous patterns when rock fracture induces the release of ozone from underground and surface cracks," he said.
"Such an array, located away from areas with high levels of ground ozone, could be useful for giving early warning to earthquakes." He added that detection of an increase of ground ozone might also be useful in anticipating disasters in tunnel excavation, landslides and underground mines.
Interesting2: People who believe there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about global warming tend to be less certain that global warming is happening and less supportive of climate policy, researchers at George Mason, San Diego State, and Yale Universities report in a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. A recent survey of climate scientists conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois found near unanimous agreement among climate scientists that human-caused global warming is happening.
This new George Mason University study, however, using results from a national survey of the American public, finds that many Americans believe that most climate scientists actually disagree about the subject.
In the national survey conducted in June 2010, two-thirds of respondents said they either believed there is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening (45 percent), that most scientists think it is not happening (5 percent), or that they did not know enough to say (16 percent.)
These respondents were less likely to support climate change policies and to view climate change as a lower priority. By contrast, survey respondents who correctly understood that there is widespread agreement about global warming among scientists were themselves more certain that it is happening, and were more supportive of climate policies.
"Misunderstanding the extent of scientific agreement about climate change is important because it undermines people's certainty that climate change is happening, which in turn reduces their conviction that America should find ways to deal with the problem," says Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.
Maibach argues that a campaign should be mounted to correct this misperception. "It is no accident that so many Americans misunderstand the widespread scientific agreement about human-caused climate change. A well-financed disinformation campaign deliberately created a myth about there being lack of agreement. The climate science community should take all reasonable measures to put this myth to rest."
Interesting3: The presence of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere last year reached its highest levels since pre-industrial times, a report released by the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns today. The latest edition of WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, which places special focus on rising nitrous oxide concentrations, also notes that the rate of increase of greenhouse gases has recently accelerated.
“Even if we managed to halt our greenhouse gas emissions today – and this is far from the case – they would continue to linger in the atmosphere for decades to come and so continue to affect the delicate balance of our living planet and our climate,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
According to the report, the 20 years to 2010 saw a 29 per cent increase in “radiative forcing” – the warming effect the gases have on the Earth’s climate – from greenhouse gases, with carbon dioxide accounting for 80 per cent of this increase.
“Now more than ever before, we need to understand the complex, and sometimes unexpected, interactions between greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Earth’s biosphere and oceans,” Mr. Jarraud said.
Human activities, such as fossil fuel burning and agriculture, are major emitters of greenhouse gases, which trap radiation within the Earth’s atmosphere, causing it to warm and spur climate change. Speaking at a press conference earlier today, WMO Deputy Secretary-General Jeremiah Lengoasa called for further development in the alternative energy sector to stem the rapid growth of greenhouse gases.
“Unless there is the investment made by funding alternative energy sources that are non-polluting, in particular as a viable substitute for fossil fuels, then the kind of steps that are required in scientific terms to cap or stem the growth would not happen and so we anticipate that these investments have to be made,” he told reporters.
Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are the three main contributors to greenhouse gasses, with carbon dioxide’s atmospheric abundance rising by 39 per cent since the start of the industrial era in about 1750.
Email Glenn James: