Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / March 10-11, 2012

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

Lihue, Kauai –                     78  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –      80   
Kaneohe, Oahu –                 M
Molokai airport –                 77
Kahului airport, Maui –          77
Kona airport –                  82
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 Saturday evening:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 78
Hilo, Hawaii – 74

Haleakala Crater –  48 (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…although this webcam is often not working correctly.

 Aloha Paragraphs

   

Windward biased showers…and windy

Small craft wind advisory all marine zones

As this weather map shows, we have a strong near 1039 millibar high pressure system to the northwest of the islands. At the same time we have a trough of low pressure to the west of the state. Our winds will be locally strong and gusty trades through this weekend….continuing into the new work week ahead. 

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

37                 Lihue, Kauai – NE 
42                 Kuaokala, Oahu – NE 
37                 Molokai – E     
49                 Kahoolawe – NE   
43                 Kahului airport, Maui – NE     
40                 Lanai – NE 
38                 Upolu airport, Big Island – NE

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Saturday evening.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see lots of clouds surrounding the islands, especially to the west and northwest, and to the southeast of the Big Island. We can use this looping satellite image to see a counterclockwise rotating upper level low pressure system to the west-northwest of Kauai, with thunderstorms near its center…and to its south. At the same time, we have clouds coming up over us from the south in places too. Checking out this looping radar image we see showers falling generally over the ocean, with some being carried into the windward sides on the strong and gusty trade winds…with the most notable shower areas to the south of the Big Island, and the west of Kauai.

Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Saturday evening:
 
4.90              Kilohana, Kauai
0.38               Palisades, Oahu
0.00               Molokai
0.00               Kahoolawe
1.31               Puu Kukui, Maui
0.87               Piihohua, Big Island  

Sunset Commentary:  A counterclockwise rotating upper level low pressure system, over the ocean to the west-northwest of Kauai, is shown in this looping satellite image. At the same time, we find a trough of low pressure over the ocean well to the west of Kauai…which is moving away. As this trough shifts further west, our weather will ease back into a more or less typical trade wind pattern…stronger than normal however. This strong wind flow has triggered a small craft advisory in all of the marine zones around the state. There's a not common wind advisory over most of the islands themselves too.

Last evening I went to see the film Wanderlust, starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, which looked kind of cute. The synopsis: rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple experiments with living on a rural commune where free love rules. The film rating website rotten tomatoes is giving this film a 60 rating out of 100, which isn't too bad. I was willing to give it a try, after a very long week of heavy duty weather coverage, and as it turned out, it was pleasant to just relax at the theater, a full theater I might add. I enjoyed the film, and could relate quite well, as I'm still a hippy at heart…and actually have a lifestyle that is rather hippy-like as well.  I love nature and the weather, and eat healthy food, and live in a rural area, I suppose these are a few of the major things that qualify a person to be a hippy…right? I found the film to be rather endearing in some ways, with generally good acting, especially by the two main stars. Jennifer Aniston is so darn cute, and Paul Rudd was kind of a klutz, but funny too. As for a grade, if I must go that far with this kind of light hearted film, well…I guess a B would work here. Here's a trailer in case you're interested in taking a peek.

Here in Kula, Maui at 515pm HST, we had calm winds, with partly cloudy skies…and an air temperature of 68.7F degrees. As I mentioned above, the main weather feature that will be pushing us around some, will be the dynamic winds that are rushing across our island chain now. Wind gusts around the state today have been well up into the 30 mph range, with many of them pushing past the 40 mph mark…just shy of 50 mph in at least one place! Meanwhile, there's a new area of high cirrus clouds moving near the islands, which are beautiful to see, and should provide some nice sunset colors this evening, and perhaps at sunrise again on Sunday. As for rainfall, we will likely see some (and I hesitate to write this quite honestly) increase in windward showers later Sunday into Monday. The winds are strong enough too, that some of these showers will spray their way over into the leeward sides on the smaller islands. Then, by say Tuesday or so, our weather should turn drier, perhaps much drier, providing very pleasant weather for several days thereafter. ~~~ I've been invited over to my neighbors house for dinner this evening, with another friend joining us as well. These are the same folks that I have been socializing with lately on Saturday nights, the ones that help to make some very good conversations. I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you happen to be spending it, I'll catch up with you in the morning! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Extra: Sometimes I have to brag a little, not often, other than those slips about my fast walks an all, but this time I'm impressed about something!  I just looked at the number of page views of this website so far this month, and I was amazed that at the moment, it showed 296,391! Oh my gosh, that's over a 1/4 of a million…isn't that a pretty big number!? There have been 2,812 google ad clicks at the same time, which is good, as that's partly how I earn a few bucks for my time and effort at keeping Hawaii Weather Today updated each day, actually…many many times each day.  I couldn't help sharing these numbers with you, as again, we're only 10 days into the month. It's more than the numbers though, its that "I write and you read", that's the real beauty of this weather relationship that we have going on here! It's that you are interested in the weather too, just as I am, and we get the job done together so well. Thank you, thank you very much for making this website…at least one of your weather information sources! Aloha, Glenn.

Extra: Youtube music video, Simply Red…Holding Back The Years

Interesting: Creating some of life's building blocks in space may be a bit like making a sandwich — you can make them cold or hot, according to new NASA research. This evidence that there is more than one way to make crucial components of life increases the likelihood that life emerged elsewhere in the Universe, according to the research team, and gives support to the theory that a "kit" of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by impacts from meteorites and comets assisted the origin of life.

In the study, scientists with the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., analyzed samples from fourteen carbon-rich meteorites with minerals that indicated they had experienced high temperatures — in some cases, over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

They found amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, used by life to speed up chemical reactions and build structures like hair, skin, and nails. Previously, the Goddard team and other researchers have found amino acids in carbon-rich meteorites with mineralogy that revealed the amino acids were created by a relatively low-temperature process involving water, aldehyde and ketone compounds, ammonia, and cyanide called "Strecker-cyanohydrin synthesis."

"Although we've found amino acids in carbon-rich meteorites before, we weren't expecting to find them in these specific groups, since the high temperatures they experienced tend to destroy amino acids," said Dr. Aaron Burton, a researcher in NASA's Postdoctoral Program stationed at NASA Goddard.

"However, the kind of amino acids we discovered in these meteorites indicates that they were produced by a different, high-temperature process as their parent asteroids gradually cooled down." Burton is lead author of a paper on this discovery appearing March 9 in Meteoritics and Planetary Science.