Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / March 14-15, 2012

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

Lihue, Kauai –                     77  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –      80   
Kaneohe, Oahu –                 M
Molokai airport –                 77
Kahului airport, Maui –          80
Kona airport –                  81
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 Wednesday evening:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 78
Princeville, Kauai – 72

Haleakala Crater –  46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea –         36 (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

   
Nice weather, with a few windward
showers at times…locally breezy

Small craft wind advisory in the major
channels – wind advisory summit of
the Haleakala Crater on Maui

As this weather map shows, we have a near 1024 millibar high pressure system to the northwest…with its associated ridge extending east to the north of the islands.  Our winds will remain active from the trade wind direction, easing up a little Thursday…then resuming their stronger stance Friday. 

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

15                 Lihue, Kauai – NE
20                 Honolulu, Oahu – NE
27                 Molokai – NE
33                 Kahoolawe – NE
32                 Kahului, Maui – NE
23                 Lanai – NE
24                 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 Wednesday evening.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see scattered low clouds upstream of the islands…with generally clear to partly cloudy skies downwind from the leeward sides. We can use this looping satellite image to see low clouds coming into the state, carried by the trade winds. Checking out this looping radar image we see very few showers being carried over the islands by the trade winds, mostly over the windward coasts and slopes at the time of this writing. 

Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Wednesday evening:
 
0.18               Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.04               St. Stephens, Oahu
0.00               Molokai
0.00               Kahoolawe
0.21               Puu Kukui, Maui
0.21               Mountain View, Big Island  

Sunset Commentary:   A well established trade wind weather pattern will remain in control over the islands tonight into Thursday. The wind speeds will dip slightly in strength Thursday, then pick up again Friday through Saturday. As we get into Sunday they will be softening, and swinging around to the east-southeast and southeast, due to a cold front approaching the state…although stalling before arriving on Kauai. As for showers, there will continue to be slight increases and decreases, although likely more dry and anything else.  The latest computer forecast models are now showing a trough of low pressure edging into the area west of Kauai Sunday into the first part of next week…which could put us into a wetter weather pattern then. Stay tuned for more on this possible increase in showers over the next few days.

Here in Kula, Maui at 515pm HST, we had light winds, with partly cloudy skies…and an air temperature of 71.1F degrees.  Today was another very nice day, with another beauty on tap for Thursday. As I was noting above, there's nothing out of the ordinary in terms of weather expected to happen here in the islands through about Saturday. High pressure to our northwest and north will spin out active trade winds. These trade winds will carry showery clouds in our direction at times, although they should remain at a minimum over the next few days. There's a modest early season south swell bringing a few waves to the leeward beaches now, although they will be small enough…that they shouldn't be a problem for swimmers.  The wild card at this point is what will happen from this Sunday through about the middle of next week. There's a chance that unsettled weather may enter our Hawaiian Island weather picture then….more on that prospect soon. ~~~ I'll be back early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Wednesday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Extra:  I'm tracking the number of page views for this website, and continue to be happy with the results…as this morning's number shows 391,415. At the same time, there have been 3,594 google ad clicks at the same time, which is good, as this is how I partly earn a few bucks for my time and effort at keeping Hawaii Weather Today updated each day. 

Last month there were a total of 388,252 page views, with 3,065 google ad clicks.  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.

I absolutely know that when the weather here in Hawaii is a big deal, going off so to speak, many more of you come looking for information…and when things settle down, like they are now, the numbers slim down. At any rate, thank you very much for making this website…at least one of your weather information sources! Aloha, Glenn.

Interesting:  Henry David Thoreau was a famed naturalist, philosopher, and author who resided in Eastern Massachusetts from 1817 to 1862. He was also a leading abolitionist and advocator of civil disobedience in defiance of an unjust state. He is perhaps best known for his views on simple living uncluttered by overdevelopment embodied in his famous book Walden; or, Life in the Woods.

As a naturalist, he made records for the flowering dates of a number of common plant species. Now, 150 years later, a team of biologists from Boston University (BU) have compared those flowering records with those of today. They found that the flowering date for 43 common species had moved up by an average of seven days since the time of Thoreau.

The researchers found that some unfortunate plants that were not able to adapt to the earlier spring have now vanished from this Earth. For example, there were 21 species of wild orchid in Concord, MA in the 1860s. Now, there are only six. The research was conducted by Richard Primack, professor of biology at BU and is graduate student, Abe Miller-Rushing.

Along with the help of independent Thoreau scholar, Brad Dean, they walked in the path of Henry David Thoreau, observing the same species. They also located similar records by the botanist, Alfred Hosmer, who also followed in Thoreau's footsteps around the turn of the 20th century.

"Even though the world around us has changed quite a bit we were able to do roughly the same fieldwork he did," said Miller-Rushing, who is now the science coordinator for the Schoodic Education and Research Center, Acadia National Park, in Maine.

"He couldn't possibly have been thinking about the things we are using his data for today." Plants can adapt to climate change in two ways. They can either adjust their ranges, moving to higher latitudes or altitudes, or they can adjust their phenology, or timing of seasonal events such as blooming and leafing.

Primack found that 43 common species had adjusted their phenology in the Concord area in response to rising temperatures. Since Thoreau's time, Concord's average temperature has risen by 4.3 degrees F. Thoreau's records have given modern scientists a way to track the long-term trend of climate change.

Usually, long-term trends consist of data from the last 30 or 50 years. For the first time, current data could be compared to data from the mid-1800s. Yet another significant contribution from the amazing life of Henry David Thoreau.

Interesting2: Cats, along with many other carnivores, are unable to taste sweets at all. Yes there are always exceptions but the typical cat like animal cannot taste sweets. Now why is this? Lions, hyenas and other pure carnivores have lost the ability to taste sweet foods. Omnivores (like humans) can taste sweets.

A team of researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia studied 12 different mammals who subsist mainly on meat and fish, and focused on their sweet taste receptor genes. Some mutation along the way changed how sweets are perceived.

It is widely believed that most mammals perceive five basic taste qualities: sweet, umami (savory taste), bitter, salty, and sour. The receptors for sweet, umami and bitter tastes are G protein-coupled receptors(GPCRs) Sweet taste is mediated largely by a heteromer of two closely related Tas1r (type 1 taste receptor) family GPCRs. For decades, scientists have known that cats show no real preference for sweets.

Then in 2005, researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia published research showing that domestic cats have a mutation rendering their taste receptors unable to bind to sweet molecules. The same was true of their wild cousins, including lions, tigers and jaguars.

Seven species, all exclusive meat eaters, have lost the sweet taste receptor according to the new research. Some of those species inhale their food without even chewing. The list included bottlenose dolphins, sea lions, and spotted hyenas. Sweet taste buds still work in mammals that need fruit and carbs, like raccoons and red wolves, showing that diet has played a part in their recent evolution.

Animals who were already skipping the sweets never missed the ability to taste them. What does that mean for cats showing a penchant for melons, or an obsession with cake? Probably that another aspect of their taste perception is attracting them, like bitter or savory flavors.

When the researchers looked more closely at the genes, they saw that, for the most part, different mutations independently disabled sweet receptors in different species. An animal's diet, it appears, determines whether a taste tasting mutation will disappear or stick around. What we eat affects ultimately how we may change or evolve when a random mutation pops up.