Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday:
Lihue, Kauai – 79
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 78
Molokai airport – 79
Kahului airport, Maui – 83 (Highest temperature for this date was 87 – in 1952)
Kona airport – 80
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Sunday evening:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 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
Trade winds, generally dry weather
Full Moon Tonight!
As this weather map shows a near 1028 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast, and a near 1024 millibar high pressure cell to our north-northeast…along with a weak cold front between that last high and our islands. The location of these high pressure cells, and their associated ridges will keep light to moderately strong trade winds blowing, which will prevail into the new week…some days stronger than others.
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions Sunday evening:
23 Port Allen, Kauai – SSE
14 Kahuku, Oahu – ENE
05 Molokai – NW
M Kahoolawe
18 Lipoa, Maui – ENE
12 Lanai
25 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 Sunday evening. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see just a few scattered low level clouds out over the ocean at the time of this writing. We can use this looping satellite image to see high clouds well offshore to the northeast of the islands. At the same time we see an area of thunderstorms being generated well to the east of the Big Island. Checking out this looping radar image we see just a few showers over the ocean, impacting a few windward spots.
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Sunday evening:
0.04 Lihue, Kauai
0.02 Kahana, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.00 Maui
0.08 Hilo airport, Big Island
Sunset Commentary: There are two high pressure systems, one far to the northeast and the other north-northeast of the Hawaiian Islands Sunday evening. An associated high pressure ridge has been pushed closer to Kauai now, by a cold front that's quickly passing by to the north. This frontal cloud band has helped to tamp down our trade wind speeds a little today. As this front moves by, our trade winds will bump-up some Monday through the first half of the new week ahead. A cold front may get close to the state this coming Thursday into early Friday, with cooler trade winds flooding in behind it then. It looks like the winds will decrease again as we move into next weekend, with another cold front approaching the islands.
The state remains very dry, with just a very few windward showers expected here and there locally at times. This unusually dry atmosphere will limit showers greatly, and as a matter of fact, will keep us in this dry period through the middle of the new week. The next chance for some increase in rainfall will have to wait until later in the new week, when a frontal cloud band or a trough of low pressure aloft gets close to the state around Thursday into Friday. There remains uncertainty around what exactly will happen then, although that is the first sign of some sort of possible increase in more generous showers. Conditions are expected to dry out quickly by the time we move into next weekend, although a new cold front will approaching the state, perhaps getting close at the start of next week.
Have you been noticing the nearing full moon the last couple of nights? It reaches its fullest extent tonight at 930pm here in Hawaii. This first full Moon of 2012 highlights the opposition between the Sun in Capricorn and the Moon in Cancer, and speaks to the nurturing, creating and protecting aspects of life and society. It brings up the archetypal powers of mother and father, the issues of nurturing and protecting, and impacts our emotional body as well as our social body. The energies of family and state begin our new year, the structures that bind us together.
Some things never change, just the way I like it. So, this past Friday evening I headed down the mountain to Kahului to see one of the many new films that are showing. The one that I chose this time is My Week With Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Emma Watson, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench…among many others. The synopsis: Sir Laurence Olivier is making a movie in London. Young Colin Clark, an eager film student, wants to be involved and he navigates himself a job on the set. When film star Marilyn Monroe arrives for the start of shooting, all of London is excited to see the blonde bombshell, while Olivier is struggling to meet her many demands and acting ineptness, and Colin is intrigued by her. Colin's intrigue is met when Marilyn invites him into her inner world where she struggles with her fame, her beauty and her desire to be a great actress. Who doesn't love Marilyn Monroe, although all I know about her for the most part is from looking at the millions of photo's that were taken of her. The film is getting an A- grade on the Yahoo movies website, while rotten tomatoes is giving it a high 83% rating. This was amply enough praise to draw me into the theater, and I liked how the trailer looked too. I ended up liking the film, but not totally loving it. The first thing that I sort of had to get through was that she wasn't the real Marilyn that I was familiar with. I thought Michelle Williams did a great job, and more or less looked like Marilyn. I enjoyed the relationship that transpired between the young Colin, as he fell steadily deeper in love with Marilyn. Actually, everywhere Marilyn went, everyone, man, woman and child was taken by her, and found themselves moved by her beauty. The film took me to that place that wasn't Glenn sitting there watching the film in the theater, enough so that I came away thoroughly entertained. I will give this film either a very firm B grade, although at times edged up into the B+ range. I was very happy to have taken the time to see it, no doubt about it.
Here in Kula, Maui at around 5pm HST, it was partly cloudy…with an air temperature of 66F degrees. The winds today were even somewhat lighter than the last few days, as expected. Whatever few clouds that were around didn't drop any rainfall…with just a few very minor exceptions. It was another great day, as they have been lately. The surf rose along our north and west shores again, with a high surf advisory active from Kauai down through Maui, and then onto the west coast of the Big Island tonight as well. This new swell peaked in size today, and will begin gradually lowering some on Monday. We have two more new near back-to-back northwest swells that will arrive early Tuesday, and then on Wednesday as well. As has been the case recently, the best beaching conditions will prevail along our leeward south facing shores. ~~~ Here in Kula it was off and on cloudy from late morning through the late afternoon hours. There might have been 6 or 7 very small drops of water falling from these clouds, but no more than that. I very much enjoyed the day, after not getting home until 315am this morning, actually slept in until around 10am, which is very unusual for this island weatherman! It was a little bit of a slow day, although I was still able to get quite a few things done. I made a simple red pasta sauce, with just red onions, mushrooms, cut up brussels sprouts, along with a small can of wild caught, skinless and boneless sardines for a little protein. I'll plate this Monday through Thursday evenings for dinner, adding some capers, and grated hard cheese too. This evening for dinner I'll cook some organic fingerling potatoes, and a small head of broccoli, along with two small pieces of fresh wild Ahi. ~~~ I'll be back early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you enjoy your Sunday night, and don't forget to step outside to see the full moon…and without a doubt, it will be trying to shine in your window too! It will be hard to miss, as it will be beaming down all kinds of reflected sunlight after dark! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: It's official: 2011 was the driest year on record in Texas, according to the National Weather Service. It was also the second-hottest ever. That won't surprise Texans who lived through a year in which wildfires roared through the Lone Star State, cattle went thirsty and many Fourth of July fireworks shows were canceled. The weather service said the average rainfall in Texas in 2011 was 14.89 inches.
The previous record of 14.99 inches of average rainfall was set in 1917. The average temperature in 2011 was 67.2 degrees. The warmest year on record was 1921, when the average temperature was 67.5 degrees, the weather service said.
The prolonged Texas drought is to blame for devastating agriculture and livestock losses, estimated in the billions of dollars. The historic drought has killed as many as half a billion trees, not including those that died in wildfires that scorched some 4 million acres in 2011, the Texas Forest Service has reported.
While some parts of Texas received substantial rainfall during December, 97.83 percent of the state remained in severe drought this week, according to a Thursday report by the U.S. Drought Monitor. In addition, 32.4 percent of Texas lingered in exceptional drought, the most extreme category, according to the Drought Monitor.
The current drought started in fall 2010. The period from October 2010 through September 2011 was the driest period ever, when average rainfall was only 11.18 inches, according to a report by the state climatologist. The most drought-stricken areas are in southwest Texas as well as through the central and south-central regions of the state.
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