Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / December 27-28, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                   79
Honolulu airport, Oahu –    81  
Kaneohe, Oahu –               78
Molokai airport –                77
Kahului airport, Maui –        80  
Kona airport –                      81
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          76

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

Honolulu, Oahu – 79
Hilo, Hawaii – 73

Haleakala Crater – 41 (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

Gradually lighter trade winds, just a few
passing windward showers
Small craft wind advisories eastern islands –
Wind advisory Haleakala Crater on Maui…
and the summits on the Big Island

As this weather map shows…we have a near 1031 millibar high pressure system far to the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands Tuesday evening.  This high pressure cell is well offshore from San Diego, California, with a very long ridge of high pressure extending west-southwest from its center. This ridge runs by the Hawaiian Islands, up around 27 degrees north latitude, and then further west across the International Dateline…into the western Pacific. The location of this high pressure ridge is keeping our very long lasting strong and gusty trade winds blowing across Hawaii. There's forecast to be a gradual reduction in our wind speeds as we move through this last week of the year, becoming generally light into early next week.

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

30                 Lihue, Kauai – NE
36                 Kahuku, Oahu – ENE
38                 Molokai – NE
39                 Kahoolawe – ENE
32                 Kahului, Maui – NE
39                 Lanai – NE
40                    Puu Mali, 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 evening.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see areas of low level clouds heading towards our windward sides at the time of this writing. We can use this looping satellite image to see towering cumulus and thunderstorms developing over the ocean far east of the Big Island. High cirrus clouds to our northeast through northwest appear to be heading towards the state. Checking out this looping radar image we see just a few showers over the ocean, most of which are light to moderately heavy, coming into our windward sides at times.

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

0.38               Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.21               Punaluu Stream, Oahu
0.04               Molokai
0.00               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe
0.90                 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.61               Pahoa, Big Island

Sunset Commentary:  The unusually long lasting trade winds will begin diminishing in strength as we move through this last week of 2011. Winds have been gusting up over 40 mph, in a couple of those windiest spots lately…which continues early this evening. We have small craft advisory flags now having been pared back to only those windiest coasts and slopes around Maui County and the Big Island. Meanwhile, winds remain strong enough that a wind advisory remains in place over the Haleakala Crater on Maui, and over the summits on the Big Island too.

A few showery clouds will be carried in towards our windward coasts and slopes at times. In contrast, the south and west facing leeward coasts will remain mostly dry through this week, making for great beach weather conditions. The computer forecast models continue to hint we might have a cold front approaching our area towards the end of this work week, getting close to Kauai by Saturday morning…although the latest thought keeps it from arriving.  

Here in Kihei, Maui at around 530pm HST, it was clear with just a few minor clouds around the edges. I can see a little high cirrus clouds towards the northwest. Otherwise, it was a great day here in the state, with minimal showers anywhere, and pretty much maximum sunshine everywhere. The trade winds were still blustery, reaching around 50 mph in at least one place. We should see our local trade winds easing up finally, over the next several days. These winds will actually become quite light by the weekend, which I wasn't sure would ever happen, after this month's heavy duty trade wind flow! So, look for more good weather through the rest of the week, with few interruptions. ~~~ I'm heading back upcountry now, and will be back early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:  Climate changes do affect how animals adapt and change. A new novel statistical study by Brown University shows that climate changes profoundly influenced the rise and fall of six distinct and successive waves of mammal species in North America over the last 65 million years. Warming and cooling periods, in two cases confounded by species migrations, marked the transition from one dominant grouping to the next.

History often seems to happen in waves — fashion and musical tastes turn over every decade and empires give way to new ones over centuries. A similar pattern characterizes the last 65 million years of natural history in North America, where a novel quantitative analysis has identified six distinct, consecutive waves of mammal species diversity, or evolutionary faunas.

What force of history determined the destiny of these groupings? The numbers say it was typically climate change. "Although we’ve always known in a general way that mammals respond to climatic change over time, there has been controversy as to whether this can be demonstrated in a quantitative fashion," said Brown University evolutionary biology Professor Christine Janis.

"We show that the rise and fall of these faunas is indeed correlated with climatic change — the rise or fall of global paleotemperatures — and also influenced by other more local perturbations such as immigration events." Paleotemperature is the mean temperature of that time or place.

Specifically, of the six waves of species diversity that Janis and her Spanish collaborators describe online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, four show statistically significant correlations with major changes in temperature.

The two transitions that show a weaker but still apparent correlation with the pattern correspond to periods when mammals from other continents happened to invade in large numbers, said Janis, who is the paper’s senior and second author. For example, the Paleocene fauna had largely given way to the early-middle Eocene fauna by about 50 million years ago.

Moreover, the authors found that these transfers of dominance correlated with temperature shifts, as reflected in data on past levels of atmospheric oxygen (determined from the isotopes in the fossilized remains of deep sea microorganisms).

Previous studies of the potential connection between climate change and mammal species evolution have counted total species diversity in the fossil record over similar time periods. This analysis, led by postdoctoral scholar Borja Figueirido, the scientists asked whether there were any patterns within the species diversity that might be significant.

They were guided by a similar methodology pioneered in a study of evolutionary faunas in marine invertebrates by Janis’ late husband Jack Sepkoski, who was a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. What the authors found is six distinct and consecutive groupings of mammal species that shared a common rise, peak and decline in their numbers.

Moreover, the authors found that these transfers of dominance correlated with temperature shifts, as reflected in data on past levels of atmospheric oxygen (determined from the isotopes in the fossilized remains of deep sea microorganisms).

By the numbers, the research showed correlations between species diversity and temperature change, but qualitatively, it also provided a narrative of how the traits of typical species within each wave made sense given the changes in vegetation that followed changes in climate.

For example, after a warming episode about 20 million years in the early Miocene epoch, the dominant vegetation transitioned from woodland to a savannah-like grassland. It is no surprise, therefore, that many of the herbivores that comprised the accompanying Miocene fauna had high-crowned teeth that allowed them to eat the foods from those savannah sources.

To the extent that the study helps clarify scientists understanding of evolution amid climate changes, it does not do so to the extent that they can make specific predictions about the future, Janis said. But it seems all the clearer that climate change has repeatedly had meaningful effect over millions of years.

Interesting2:  A groundbreaking study led by University of Miami (UM) scientist Shimon Wdowinski shows that earthquakes, including the recent 2010 temblors in Haiti and Taiwan, may be triggered by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons), according to a presentation of the findings at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. "Very wet rain events are the trigger," said Wdowinski, associate research professor of marine geology and geophysics at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

"The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth's surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults."

Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from quakes magnitude-6 and above in Taiwan and Haiti and found a strong temporal relationship between the two natural hazards, where large earthquakes occurred within four years after a very wet tropical cyclone season.

During the last 50 years three very wet tropical cyclone events — Typhoons Morakot, Herb and Flossie — were followed within four years by major earthquakes in Taiwan's mountainous regions. The 2009 Morakot typhoon was followed by a M-6.2 in 2009 and M-6.4 in 2010. The 1996 Typhoon Herb was followed by M-6.2 in 1998 and M-7.6 in 1999 and the 1969 Typhoon Flossie was followed by a M-6.2 in 1972.

The 2010 M-7 earthquake in Haiti occurred in the mountainous region one-and-a-half years after two hurricanes and two tropical storms drenched the island nation within 25 days. The researchers suggest that rain-induced landslides and excess rain carries eroded material downstream.

As a result the surface load above the fault is lessened. "The reduced load unclamp the faults, which can promote an earthquake," said Wdowinski. Fractures in Earth's bedrock from the movement of tectonic plates, known as faults, build up stress as they attempt to slide past each other, periodically releasing the stress in the form of an earthquake.

According to the scientists, this earthquake-triggering mechanism is only viable on inclined faults, where the rupture by these faults has a significant vertical movement. Wdowinski also shows a trend in the tropical cyclone-earthquake pattern exists in M-5 and above earthquakes.
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The researchers plan to analyze patterns in other seismically active mountainous regions — such as the Philippines and Japan — that are subjected to tropical cyclones activity.