Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday:
Lihue, Kauai – 79
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 82
Kaneohe, Oahu – 78
Molokai airport – 78
Kahului airport, Maui – 83 (record high for the date – 86 – 1971, 1978)
Kona airport – 81
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 79
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Thursday evening:
Kahului, Maui – 77
Princeville, Kauai – 72
Haleakala Crater – 45 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea – 32 (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.
Aloha Paragraphs
Smaller waves on our north and west shores –
strengthening trades into the weekend, with
strong winds atop the Haleakala Crater on Maui –
showers increasing into the weekend, especially
the windward sides, the leeward sides locally too –
high cirrus clouds…providing good colors during
the early morning and sunset hours
As this weather map shows, we have storm low pressure systems far to the north and northwest of the islands, with an associated weakening and dissipating cold front not far to the north of the islands. At the same time, we have high pressure systems to the northeast and north of the islands. Our winds will be strengthening into the weekend from the trade wind direction.
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions Thursday evening:
13 Princeville, Kauai – ENE
22 Honolulu, Oahu – NE
29 Molokai – NE
38 Kahoolawe – ESE
30 Lipoa, Maui – SE
00 Lanai – NE
39 South 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 see lots of high cirrus clouds over the state. We can use this looping satellite image to see those high clouds masking all of the lower level clouds, although they are being carried our way on the strengthening trades. Checking out this looping radar image we see a few showers being carried into the islands locally…along the windward sides for the most part at the time of this writing.
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Thursday evening:
0.79 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.22 Punaluu Stream, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.11 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.07 Pahoa, Big Island
Sunset Commentary: Our winds will soon be blowing exclusively from the trade wind direction, which will strengthen over the next several days. There may still be a bit of leftover volcanic haze, carried over parts of the islands on the recent southeast breezes…although it will be ventilated away by the trade winds soon. These rebounding trade winds will strengthen rather significantly as we move into the last day of our work week, remaining robust into the weekend. The current models are hinting that these trade winds will ease up, and may even veer back to the southeast during the first part of the new week ahead…potentially bringing back more volcanic haze then.
A cold front, which has been pushing in our direction, has stalled and is dissipating over the offshore waters to the north of Kauai now. It's presence is what caused our trade winds to ease up recently. As we move through the next 24 hours, the high pressure center and to our north will strengthen and shift northwards…with stronger trade winds the result. These strong and gusty trades will bring an increase in windward biased showers Friday…with added intensities over the eastern islands Saturday and Sunday. The strength of these winter trades will help to carry some of these showers into the leeward sides of the smaller islands at times too.
This evening a couple of friends and I will be taking in a new film in Kahului. I don't ordinarily see films during the work week, although this film is leaving Maui's theaters now, and I didn't want to miss it. Oh yeah, the name of the film is called Underworld Awakening, starring Kate Beckinsale and Stephen Rea among many others. The synopsis: the vampire Selene escapes imprisonment to find herself in an all-out war between the species. Once again, this is not a film that many of you will need to rush out and see, as are many that I take in as it turns out. The rotten tomatoes film rating website is giving this film a 27 out of 100, not exactly a high score, and as a matter, the lowest of all their current film ratings. Oh well, I've seen all of this Underworld series, and have thought highly of them all. I may be making a mistake, although I'll wait and see, as the lights go out in the theater tonight. Here's the trailer for this film, and I'll be sure to let you know what I think of it Friday morning. If you dared to click on the trailer, you will see that it is not a musical, or a comedy…far from it!
Here in Kula, Maui at 530pm HST, we had calm winds, with partly cloudy skies…and an air temperature of 64.9F degrees. As noted above, the trade winds will become stronger soon. We'll also begin to see increased windward biased showers arriving later Friday into the weekend, as an upper level low pressure system develops near the state, enhancing showers moving under it. The bulk of these showers will occur over the windward sides, with even a few of these showers moving into the leeward sides locally on the smaller islands. Meanwhile, the surf will continue to break along our north and west facing beaches, although becoming smaller Friday into the weekend. The south shores will be sheltered from these breakers however, where the best beaching opportunities will exist. ~~~ I'll be back early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Thursday night wherever you're spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: The UK could considerably reduce its carbon footprint if more of us switched to a vegetarian diet, according to new research by Lancaster University. The report 'Relative greenhouse gas impacts of realistic dietary choices' published in the journal Energy Policy says that if everyone in the UK swapped their current eating habits for a vegetarian or vegan diet, our greenhouse gas emissions savings would be the equivalent of a 50 per cent reduction in exhaust pipe emissions from the entire UK passenger car fleet or 40m tons.
From biscuits and bananas to beer and wine, everything in our shopping basket comes at a cost to the environment and each stage of food production — from farming and transport to storage and packaging -results in greenhouse gas emissions.
By working out the typical greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of 61 different categories of food, using supermarket data supplied by Booths, the authors of the report, Professor Nick Hewitt of Lancaster University and Mike Berners-Lee of Small World Consulting, were able to work out the typical emissions associated with a number of different diets.
They worked out that the combined greenhouse gas emissions from the foods we eat in the UK are the equivalent of 167 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, and switching to vegetarian or vegan diets could cut this by between 22 and 26 per cent. Fresh meat had the highest emissions of all, but meat and cheese had generally high greenhouse gas costs.
These emissions were largely caused by methane from rumination, slurry and farm yard manure and nitrous oxide from fertilizer. Meat has a carbon footprint at the checkout of 17kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram. Cheese has 15kg. Cooked meats are also high at 11kg per kilogram, with bacon at 9kg.
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