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

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   79
Honolulu airport, Oahu –    83   (record high for the date – 87 in 1983)
Kaneohe, Oahu –               80
Molokai airport –                73
Kahului airport, Maui          81 
Kona airport                      82
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          78

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 7pm Thursday evening:

Honolulu, Oahu – 85
Hilo, Hawaii – 70

Haleakala Crater – 50 (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 Thursday evening:

0.05     Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.04     Kahana, Oahu
0.00     Molokai
0.00     Lanai
0.00     Kahoolawe
0.12     Puu Kukui, Maui
0.15     Mountain View, 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

  Somewhat less windy, just a few windward
showers…otherwise nice Thursday and and Friday

Happy Thanksgiving!
 

As this weather map shows, we find a 1026 millibar high pressure system located to the  northeast of the Hawaiian Islands Thursday night.  At the same time, there’s the tail-end of a weak cold front to the east of our islands, with a new cold front approaching to the northwest.  Our trade winds will decrease some into Friday.  We'll find another episode of strong and gusty trade winds riding in again behind a cold front this weekend…into early next week.

The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions Thursday evening:

12                 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
18                 Bellows, Oahu – NE
05                 Molokai – NE
16                 Kahoolawe – ESE
22                    Kapalua, Maui – NE
00                 Lanai 
22                    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 Thursday evening. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find that high and middle level cloudiness is located to the northeast of the state, which is shifting over Maui County and the Big Island at the time of this writing. We can use this looping satellite image to see fairly minor low cloud lines being carried into our windward sides on the trade wind flow. At the same time, we find a considerable amount of thunderstorm rainfall over the ocean well west and south of the Aloha state. Checking out this looping radar image we see a few showers falling locally over the ocean, arriving along our windward coasts and slopes here and there.

Sunset Commentary:  High pressure to our northeast is the source of our lighter trade winds on this Thanksgiving holiday, in contrast to lower pressure in the deeper tropics to our south. The expectation continues to be that these winds will mellow-out a little more through most of Friday.

Things will change however as we get into late Friday, and certainly over the upcoming weekend. A strengthening high pressure cell to the north of the state will push a weak cold front down into the state during the first part of the weekend. The associated showers accompanying this frontal passage won’t be the main event however. What will be more like headline weather news will be the return of strong and gusty winds into Sunday, and perhaps into next Monday as well.

The rather long lasting small craft wind advisories have been dropped now. However, they will be back fully this weekend, and it wouldn’t be out of the question to see wind advisories over some parts of the islands as well. The flow may be deep enough that the peaks on Maui and the Big Island could require wind advisories too…it’s going to be windy. As we get into next week, the winds will calm down by Tuesday or so.

I went to see a film after work Wednesday evening with a friend, which was called Margin Call, starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore…among many others. The synopsis: The key players at an investment firm become entangled during one perilous 24-hour period in the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis. When entry-level analyst Peter Sullivan unlocks information that could prove to be the downfall of the firm, a roller-coaster ride ensues as decisions both financial and moral catapult the lives of all involved to the brink of disaster. The critics are giving this film an impressive B+ grade, while the viewers are giving it that same high mark. It was a rather dark film, and I don't remember any of the actors ever getting even slightly close to smiling! Nonetheless, it was very well done, and I greatly enjoyed all aspects of it, including the great acting. It was interesting, as there was hardly a person in the shopping mall before the film started, and no one there afterwards. It was like a ghost town, literally, and felt so weird somehow. I'm sure it will be quite a different story once we get into so called black Friday. At any rate, as for my grade, I'm going up above the pack grade here, and nudge it up to an A-…I must could say I loved this film. It was shockingly real, with a very tight look at Wall Street. Here's a trailer in case you are interested in getting a little taste of this films nature.

Here in Kula, Maui at around 130pm Thursday evening we have partly to mostly cloudy skies, with an air temperature of 66.9F degrees. As I was mentioning above, I trust that this major holiday will be nice here in Hawaii from a weather perspective. I'm quite sure that Friday will be the same, although may begin to get windier already by tomorrow evening. The expected stronger winds will have to wait until the weekend, at which point most folks will notice the change. ~~~ I had a good long walk in Keokea this morning, and then came back here for breakfast and coffee and socializing with my neighbors. I've been invited down to lower Kula for a Thanksgiving celebration this afternoon, so will enjoy socializing and sitting down with friends for a special meal. I'll be back later this evening with a few updates, and then for a more thorough narrative early Friday morning, which is a work day for me in Kihei. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family or friends, or if you're alone, I hope you have a peaceful time of enjoying your own company too. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: Global climate talks need to focus on the growing threat from extreme weather and shift away from political squabbles that hobble progress toward a tougher pact to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, the head of the U.N. climate panel said. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries meet in Durban, South Africa, on Monday for two-week talks, with minimal expectations of major progress toward an agreement that will eventually bind all major economies to emissions caps.

Rajendra Pachauri warned the latest round of talks risked being bogged down by "short-term and narrow political considerations." "It is absolutely essential that the negotiators get a continuous and repeated exposure to the science of climate change," Pachauri told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday.

"If we were to do that it will definitely have an impact on the quality and outcome of the negotiations, after all these are human beings, they have families, they are people also worried about what is going to happen to the next generations." Pachauri heads the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued a report for policymakers on Friday saying an increase in heat waves is almost certain, while heavier rain, more floods, stronger cyclones, landslides and more intense droughts are likely across the globe this century.

"I am afraid the way the whole thing is structured loses sight of these realities," Pachauri said of the talks. The report comes after a year of costly weather disasters, from floods in Thailand to a string of multi-billion dollar disasters in the United States that have killed hundreds.

At best Durban is expected to result in modest steps toward a deal to lower emissions from factories, power stations and transport that scientists say are heating up the planet. The negotiations have become a battleground between rich and poor nations on the question of how much cuts in greenhouse gases each should take, with developing countries insisting they should be allowed to emit more to grow out of poverty.

Interesting2: People sleep significantly better and feel more alert during the day if they get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, a new study concludes. A nationally representative sample of more than 2,600 men and women, ages 18-85, found that 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a week, which is the national guideline, provided a 65 percent improvement in sleep quality.

People also said they felt less sleepy during the day, compared to those with less physical activity. The study, out in the December issue of the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, lends more evidence to mounting research showing the importance of exercise to a number of health factors.

Among adults in the United States, about 35 to 40 percent of the population has problems with falling asleep or with daytime sleepiness. "We were using the physical activity guidelines set forth for cardiovascular health, but it appears that those guidelines might have a spillover effect to other areas of health," said Brad Cardinal, a professor of exercise science at Oregon State University and one of the study's authors.

"Increasingly, the scientific evidence is encouraging as regular physical activity may serve as a non-pharmaceutical alternative to improve sleep." After controlling for age, BMI (Body Mass Index), health status, smoking status, and depression, the relative risk of often feeling overly sleepy during the day compared to never feeling overly sleepy during the day decreased by 65 percent for participants meeting physical activity guidelines.

Similar results were also found for having leg cramps while sleeping (68 percent less likely) and having difficulty concentrating when tired (45 percent decrease). Paul Loprinzi, an assistant professor at Bellarmine University is lead author of the study, which was conducted while he was a doctoral student in Cardinal's lab at OSU.

He said it is the first study to examine the relationship between accelerometer-measured physical activity and sleep while utilizing a nationally representative sample of adults of all ages. 'Our findings demonstrate a link between regular physical activity and perceptions of sleepiness during the day, which suggests that participation in physical activity on a regular basis may positively influence an individual's productivity at work, or in the case of a student, influence their ability to pay attention in class," he said.

Cardinal said past studies linking physical activity and sleep used only self-reports of exercise. The danger with this is that many people tend to overestimate the amount of activity they do, he said. He added that the take-away for consumers is to remember that exercise has a number of health benefits, and that can include helping feel alert and awake.

"Physical activity may not just be good for the waistline and heart, but it also can help you sleep," Cardinal said. "There are trade-offs. It may be easier when you are tired to skip the workout and go to sleep, but it may be beneficial for your long-term health to make the hard decision and get your exercise."