Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / January 3-4, 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                    79
Honolulu airport, Oahu –      81    
Kaneohe, Oahu –                80
Molokai airport –                82
Kahului airport, Maui –        82 
Kona airport –                     84
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          77   

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
Princeville, Kauai – 73

Haleakala Crater –  46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea –         37 (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

Returning trade winds, windward showers…very
high dangerous surf north and west shores into
Wednesday – volcanically hazy on some islands –
Cold front bringing a few showers to Kauai

As this weather map shows a high pressure system far to the northeast, with another moderately strong high pressure cell to the northwest…moving quickly eastward. The location of these high pressure cells, and their associated ridges will bring back more moderately strong trade winds on Wednesday. These trades will prevail through the next week.

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

14                 Barking Sands, Kauai – NNW
10                 Waianae, Oahu – SSE
09                 Molokai – NE  
M                  Kahoolawe
16                 Kahului, Maui – NE
05                 Lanai 
20                    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 Tuesday evening.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see low level clouds around the islands, mostly remaining offshore, although they have moved over the islands locally.  We can use this looping satellite image to see a cold frontal cloud band approaching the islands just to the northwest of Kauai. Checking out this looping radar image we see just a few showers over the ocean, coming into the islands locally.

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

0.03               Lihue airport, Kauai
0.01               Kaneohe, Oahu
0.00               Molokai
0.00               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe
0.00               Maui
1.58                 Pahoa, Big Island

Sunset Commentary:  The local winds remained quite light in most areas again today, strongest on the Big Island end of the chain. As we get into Wednesday, we'll find a new high pressure system moving by to our north. This in turn will bring back light to moderately strong trade winds, lasting through the end of the week…into the middle of next week. These winds will quickly blow the volcanic haze away from Maui County, and Hilo on the Big Island too.

A cold front is down towards Kauai now, which will get close to Kauai, before stalling tonight into Wednesday morning…bringing a few showers with it. Then, as the trade winds return Wednesday, we'll likely see the windward shower activity increase a notch into the weekend, although nothing unusual. The leeward sides will remain quite sunny, with dry weather prevailing into the future.

Here in Kula, Maui at around 530pm HST, it was cloudy…with an air temperature of 68.2F degrees…along with thick volcanic haze! As mentioned above, the trade winds will return Wednesday, helping to ventilate the extremely heavy duty volcanic haze that has prevailed over Maui County, and the Hilo side of the Big Island the last several days…thank goodness! ~~~ The big thing now here in the islands otherwise, is the huge surf that is breaking along our north and west facing shores! We have an unusual high surf warning in effect along those north and west facing beaches. This much higher than normal surf will then gradually lower later Thursday into the weekend. This will be dangerous surf, and those not used to such large waves, which is just about everyone, should exercise great caution when getting near those beaches! ~~~ I'll be back early Wednesday morning with more news about the returning trade winds, and the extremely large surf. By the way, if you're interested, you will find information about a meteor shower this evening here in the islands…down below on this page. I hope you have a great Tuesday night from wherever you happen to be reading from! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Extra: Incredible dancing youtube video!

Interesting:  The North Atlantic Current — popularly known as the Gulf Stream — warms Norway and Northern Europe. It is the chaos of the seas that warms the country, researchers have discovered. If its waters flowed smoothly north along the Norwegian coastline, the current would deliver far less warmth.

Norway is situated at the same high northern latitude as Greenland, Northern Canada and Northern Siberia, but thanks to the Gulf Stream, its climate is significantly more temperate. If the Norwegian branch of the North Atlantic Current flowed evenly, it would surge past Norway at a speed approaching one meter per second, roughly as fast as many rivers run.

At that rate, the waters would need only 60 days or so to travel the length of Norway's mainland and reach Svalbard. This would mean that less of the current's heat would be transferred to the atmosphere, resulting in a substantially colder climate for Norway.

In the research project POLEWARD: A drifter experiment to quantify the poleward transport, transformation and spreading of oceanic properties, scientists have discovered that the current takes more than 500 days to flow past Norway, giving the waters more time to release their heat and warm up the country.

The project received funding from the research program on Climate Change and Impacts in Norway (NORKLIMA) at the Research Council of Norway. Using buoys to chart the current By deploying 150 marine buoys tracked by satellite, the POLEWARD project researchers were able to chart in detail how the current flows northward along the Norwegian coast.

The buoys revealed that the current often travels quickly, but because it is so irregular and thus highly variable — indeed, chaotic may be the best description — the Gulf Stream's journey takes perhaps as much as ten times longer than it would if it flowed smoothly.

In this way there is time for the warm ocean current to convey a vastly greater proportion of its heat into the atmosphere, from which the warm air is carried on the predominantly westerly winds towards mainland Norway.

Interesting2: If you enjoy the sight of "shooting stars" then make plans to be out looking skyward tonight. This first meteor shower of the year may end up being one of the best of 2012. The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of the year's best, often producing more than 100 meteors per hour from a radiant near the North Star. In 2012 forecasters expect the shower to peak around 07:30 UT / 2:30am EST Wednesday – 11:30pm Tuesday night on the west coast – and 9:30 pm this evening here in Hawaii.

The peak is brief, typically lasting no more than an hour or so, and it does not always occur at the forecast time, so observers are encouraged to be alert for meteors after sunset here in the islands. Although the Quadrantids are a major shower, they are seldom observed.

One reason is weather. The shower peaks in early January when northern winter is in full swing. Storms and cold tend to keep observers inside. Another reason is brevity. The shower doesn't last long, a few hours at most. Even dedicated meteor watchers are likely to miss such a sharp peak.

In his classic book Meteor Astronomy, Prof. A.C.B. Lovell lamented that "useful counts of the Quadrantid rate were made in [only] 24 Januaries out of a possible 68 between 1860 and 1927. … The maximum rate appears to have occurred in 1932 (80 per hour) although the results are influenced by unfavorable weather."

The source of the Quadrantid meteor shower was unknown until December 2003 when Peter Jenniskens of the NASA Ames Research Center found evidence that Quadrantid meteoroids come from 2003 EH1, an "asteroid" that is probably a piece of a comet that broke apart some 500 years ago. Earth intersects the orbit of 2003 EH1 at a perpendicular angle, which means we quickly move through any debris.

That's why the shower is so brief. Quadrantid meteors take their name from an obsolete constellation, Quadrans Muralis, found in early 19th-century star atlases between Draco, Hercules, and Bootes. It was removed, along with a few other constellations, from crowded sky maps in 1922 when the International Astronomical Union adopted the modern list of 88 officially-recognized constellations. The Quadrantids, which were "re-zoned" to Bootes after Quadrans Muralis disappeared, kept their name–possibly because another January shower was already widely-known to meteor watchers as the "Bootids."