Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / December 23-24, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   78
Honolulu airport, Oahu –    81  (record high temperature for the date…86F degrees – 1995)
Kaneohe, Oahu –               77
Molokai airport –                76
Kahului airport, Maui –        79  
Kona airport –                      81
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          74

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 – 81
Princeville, Kauai – 72

Haleakala Crater – 46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea –        30 (near 13,800 feet on the Big Island)

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 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. Here's the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui…which is working only sometimes lately.

 Aloha Paragraphs

Blustery trade winds, passing windward showers
Small craft wind advisories statewide –
high surf advisory east shores all islands –
Wind advisory atop the Haleakala Crater on Maui –
and for all lowland areas across the state
Gale warnings eastern channels
 

As this weather map shows…we have two 1032 millibar high pressure systems to the northwest and far northeast of the Hawaiian Islands Friday evening.  The high pressure cell to our northwest is moving quickly eastward, and will combine with the high to our northeast as we move into the weekend. At the same time, we find two surface troughs of low pressure to the east of the islands. These trade winds are expected to continue through the rest of this week…and even pick up a notch or two Christmas Eve day into Christmas Day. These strong and gusty trades will carry forth into the new work week ahead, although gradually become somewhat lighter.

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

30                 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
43                    Waianae Valley, Oahu – NNE
30                 Molokai – NE
33                 Kahoolawe – E
32                 Kaupo Gap, Maui – NNE
43                    Lanai – NE
45                    Waikoloa, 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 see areas of high level clouds heading over Kauai from the northwest…moving southeast. At the same time, we have lower level clouds banked up against our windward sides from the Big Island up through Maui at the time of this writing. We can use this looping satellite image to see towering cumulus and thunderstorms developing over the ocean to the far southeast and east of the Big Island. Those high cirrus clouds to our northwest appear to be heading down through the rest of the state. Checking out this looping radar image we see showers over the ocean, most of which are light to moderately heavy, coming into our windward sides at this hour.

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

1.35               Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.11               Waiawa, Oahu
0.10               Molokai
0.00               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe
1.06               Puu Kukui, Maui
2.99                 Kawainui Stream, Big Island

Sunset Commentary:  The unusually long lasting trade winds have been around all this week, and are forecast to continue unabated through the upcoming Christmas holiday. Winds have been gusting up over 40 mph, all the way up to 50 mph at a couple of those windiest spots…especially on the small island of Lanai in Maui County. It appears that this prolonged episode of stronger than normal winds will hold onto us through the next several days, at least. If the computer models have it right, our local winds may even nudge up another notch this weekend. This is the reason behind the NWS forecast office in Honolulu issuing a gale warning for those windiest channels beginning early Saturday morning. We already have small craft advisory flags whipping in the blustery waters over the entire state’s marine environment. Meanwhile, the winds are strong enough atop the Haleakala Crater on Maui…that a wind advisory is in force up there too.

Under these circumstances, showery clouds will be carried in towards our windward coasts and slopes, which is of course common. These will keep things off and one rather wet into the weekend, with some of those showers being carried over into the leeward sides of the smaller islands…through the Christmas weekend into Monday. We also have an area of cold air aloft, which is heading our way, which once it gets here…will enhance the incoming shower clouds. This will help to wring out extra showers, as the air mass will be a bit unstable. As we’re into our winter season now, there will be the good chance of more snow showers falling atop the Mauna Kea summit on the Big Island…as they have been lately.  The latest computer forecast models still don’t show any active cold fronts pushing down into our area through the end of the year…which would help to knock this windy weather episode for a loop. This time of year things can change quickly however, so some unexpected changes could happen in our Hawaiian Island weather picture with the blink of an eye…or two.

I'm heading over to Kahului to take in a new film, this one called Young Adult, starring Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt…among many others. The synopsis: a young-adult fiction writer returns to her hometown to chase the ex-boyfiriend that got away. The ratings of this film are all over the map, from lousy to quite good. The website rotten tomatoes, which is typically a rather tough grader, is giving it a relatively high 80 out of 100 grade, which is encouraging. There are so many great films playing now, that I thought I'd see this one before it leaves our local theaters. I'm sure one of the primary draws is the natural beauty of Charlize Theron, we'll see. At any rate, I'll let you know what I think Saturday morning. Here's a trailer just in case you had some interest in taking a peek. 

Here in Kihei, Maui at around 530pm HST, it was mostly clear to partly cloudy, with strong and gusty trade winds blowing. As noted above, we aren't by any means through dealing with this unusually long lasting and strong trade wind event. Winds will be regularly gusting up into the 30-40 mph range, with a few of those windiest spots reaching up to near 50 mph at times Saturday. Showers will be most notable along our north and east windward sides, which remain locally soggy. The leeward sides will have better weather in general, although where there is exposure to the trades, the winds will be an issue. At least as long as the high clouds stay away, there will be quite a bit of sunshine along some of our leeward beaches. The winds will be strong enough, that if you live in one of those areas most exposed, you should think about securing your lawn furniture, trash barrels, and yes…those Christmas decorations. ~~~ I'll be back Saturday morning with your next new weather narrative, with more information about this windy Christmas holiday weekend. I hope you have a great Friday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:   Nigerian authorities were putting emergency measures in place on Thursday to prevent an oil spill from a Royal Dutch Shell facility, the biggest leak in Nigeria for more than 13 years, washing up on its densely populated coast. Tuesday's spill, which Shell said happened while a tanker was loading oil, has led to the complete shutdown of the company's 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bonga facility, about 120 kilometers off the coast of the West African nation.

Shell's pipelines in Nigeria's onshore Niger delta have spilled several times, which it usually blames on sabotage attacks and oil theft, though it did not in this case. "It's comparable to what happened in 1998 with the Exxon Mobil spill, in terms of the quantity that has been spilled, it's the biggest since then," Peter Idabor, director of Nigeria's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), told Reuters by telephone from the capital Abuja.

In 1998, some 40,000 barrels leaked from a ruptured Mobil pipeline off the coast of Nigeria. "We have in the region of 20,000 barrels that has been spilled into the environment … and is clearly moving to our coastline," Idabor added. He said 210 tons of dispersant were on the way to deal with the spill and that oil booms – containers made from sheets of plastic that trap the oil to stop it reaching the shore – had been deployed.

"We are a lot more prepared than we were in 1998," he said. But he added that local fishermen living along the coast had been advised to move away. "For the fishermen who are there, there is a lot of wave action. Of course, our advice would be for them to move away up to areas of water less affected." The Anglo-Dutch oil major said "less than 40,000 barrels of oil" had leaked into the ocean in this latest spill. The flow of oil had now halted, a company spokesman said on Wednesday. Around half of the spilled oil had now dissipated due to natural dispersion and evaporation, Shell said in a statement on Thursday.