Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 84
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 87
Kaneohe, Oahu – 88
Molokai airport – 85
Kahului airport, Maui – 88
Kona airport – 88
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 83
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain top around the state…as of 8pm Wednesday evening:
Kailua-kona – 81
Hilo, Hawaii – 73
Haleakala Summit – M (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 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…although this webcam is not always working correctly.
Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here.
Aloha Paragraphs
Gusty trade winds…generally nice weather
As this weather map shows, we have moderately strong high pressure systems located to the northwest and northeast of the islands. Our local trade winds will remain moderately strong, with higher gusts locally Thursday and beyond.
The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Wednesday evening:
22 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
40 Kuaokala, Oahu – NE
32 Molokai – NE
38 Kahoolawe – SE
33 Kahului, Maui – E
35 Lanai – NE
29 Pali 2, Big Island – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean. Here's the latest NOAA satellite picture – the latest looping satellite image…and finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Wednesday evening:
0.22 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.03 Wilson Tunnel, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.00 Maui
0.35 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
Sunset Commentary:
A prolonged period of moderately strong trade winds are expected…with those common stronger gusts during the days here and there. We find near 1031 millibar high pressure systems (weather map) located far to the northeast and northwest of Hawaii…driving this wind flow across our islands. The trade winds will carry just a few windward showers towards us, with generally dry conditions expected along our leeward sides. We can use this satellite image to see just a few low level clouds to our east and northeast, moving generally from east to west towards Kauai and parts of Maui and the Big Island…with Oahu remaining clear for the most part through the night. These clouds will bring just a few windward biased showers periodically through the rest of this week.
Here in Kula, Maui at 630pm Wednesday evening, it was cloudy with light misty drizzle, still a bit hazy and near calm…while the air temperature was 70.5F degrees. As mentioned above, the trade winds will continue to blow well into the future. The NWS forecast office in Honolulu has small craft wind advisory flags up over those windiest parts of Maui County and the Big Island. Winds will remain quite breezy, at least in gusts, ranging between 30-40 mph into Thursday. There was a 52 mph gust on the small island of Kahoolawe late this afternoon, although the strongest gust had diminished to 40 early Wednesday evening. We'll find ourselves in a classic summer trade wind weather pattern, lasting through the next week at least. By the way, the volcanic haze (vog) is in the atmosphere over Maui County and parts of the Big Island. I'll be back again early Thursday morning with your next new narrative from paradise, I hope you have a great Wednesday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
Central Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
Eastern Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean: Tropical depression 5L remains active in the Atlantic, located about 640 miles east of the windward islands. Maximum sustained winds are 35 mph, which is expected to increase to the tropical storm level Thursday…which will take on the name Ernesto. The long range outlook calls for Ernesto to become a hurricane after the upcoming weekend near Jamaica. Here's the official NHC graphical track map
Here's a satellite image of this depression / Here's the hurricane model output for TD 5L
Western Pacific Ocean: Typhoon Saola (10W) has shifted direction to the west, and is now acrossing Taiwan…very near Taipei. This is bringing very windy weather, and heavy flooding rainfall to much of Taiwan! Sustained winds were 75 knots, with gusts to 90 knots. It is expected to decrease in strength as it moves across the island. The latest JTWC forecast shows the center of Saola then moving across the Taiwan Strait…towards a landfall along the mainland China coast tomorrow. Here's the JTWC graphical track map, along with a NOAA satellite image.
Meanwhile, typhoon Damrey (11W) is active in the western Pacific, further to the north towards Japan…moving in a west-northwesterly over open ocean to the southwest of Japan. Sustained winds were 65 knots, with gusts to 80 knots. It has peaked in strength now, and will slowly weaken as it heads towards a landfall along the mainland China coast, as a quickly weakening tropical storm Thursday…well to the north of Shanghai. Here's the JTWC graphical track map, along with a NOAA satellite image.
Here's a satellite image of both Damrey and Saola…from Taiwan Central Weather Bureau – high resolution
South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
South and North Indian Oceans: There are no active tropical cyclones
Interesting: The drought that is parching the Midwest is allowing the Gulf of Mexico to take a breath of fresh air. This year, the “dead-zone,” a patch of oxygen-starved water at the mouth of the Mississippi River, is the fourth smallest ever recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The dead-zone is still larger than Delaware at 2,889 square miles.
“The smaller area was expected because of drought conditions and the fact that nutrient output into the Gulf this spring approached near the 80-year record low,” said Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium who led the survey cruise in a press release.
Dry conditions on land lead to a smaller dead-zone because less nutrient-rich river water is washed out to sea during a drought. The Mississippi and its tributaries pick up tons of eroded soil, fertilizers, animal and human wastes and other substances as it flows through the American heartland.
Algae in the Gulf of Mexico feast upon that flow of foodstuffs and become massive blooms. But the lifespan of the phytoplankton is pretty short and soon the dead plant life is quickly consumed by bacteria that suck the oxygen out of the water, leaving none for fish and other aquatic life.
The lack of rains and flooding this year has made the Mississippi less than mighty. The river is giving the algae less food, which leaves more air for the fish. Hence, as the drought withers this year’s corn crop, the low-flow of the river may help the fish harvest.
Although small, this year’s dead-zone is still massive compared to the smallest ever recorded in 1988, which was only 15 square miles. The largest recorded dead-zone was 8,400 square miles in 2002.
Interesting2: Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, N.Y., has often been called the most polluted lake in America. It was hammered by a one-two punch: raw and partially treated sewage from the city and its suburbs, and a century's worth of industrial dumping.
But now the final stage in a $1 billion cleanup is about to begin. Standing in his office amid stacks of reports, scientist Steve Effler glances at an old front-page headline of the Syracuse Herald-Journal: "Divers find goo in Onondaga Lake." Goo was just part of the lake's problem.
Effler, who created the Upstate Freshwater Institute, knows more about the 4.5-square-mile lake than anyone. But back in the 1950s, before he began studying the lake, he was a kid riding by in the backseat of his parents' car. "The lake [smelled] so bad [from the pollution] that you had to roll the windows up," he recalls.
By then, swimming had already been banned for more than a decade. Because of mercury contamination, fishing was banned in 1972, although there were not many fish in the lake. Effler says there was so little oxygen that fish often swam right out of the lake.
The Lake Makes A Comeback
On a recent warm summer day, about 150 people cast fishing lines from Onondaga's shore. They're part of a fishing derby, and many are first-timers here like Tammy Pengaro and her three children. "My kids have caught a lot of bass, perch, sunfish, [and] bluegill," Pengaro says.
"I was surprised to see that there's even those different fish here in Onondaga Lake." More than 60 species now swim in Onondaga, compared to about a dozen at the lake's low point. Pollution in the lake was so bad for so long that few people alive even remember when Onodaga had beaches, boathouses and even an amusement park on its shore.
The lake's remarkable turnaround is still not fully appreciated by many local residents. It has come after a decades-long fight using federal environmental laws and the courts to force remedial action. Sam Sage of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation says there was no political will to take on a costly cleanup of both raw sewage and toxic waste dumped mostly by the company Allied Chemical.
"The municipal [officials] could always say, 'Well, we're not the problem. Allied's the problem.' And Allied could say, 'We're not the problem. The municipality is the problem.' And as far as I'm concerned, they were in cahoots with each other," says Sage, who filed a lawsuit, after which Onondaga County eventually agreed to upgrade its sewage-treatment plant.
Just A Band-Aid?
For the Superfund half of the cleanup job, workers will soon begin suctioning up to 10 feet of toxic mud from parts of the lake, where as much as 20 pounds of mercury were once dumped every day. Honeywell, a successor to Allied Chemical, has already cleaned factory sites and built an underground barrier wall to keep contaminated groundwater from seeping into the lake.
Still, the project will leave 85 percent of the lake bottom untouched. Sid Hill, a leader of the Onondaga Nation, calls the cleanup project an expensive Band-Aid. He says the cleanup is not enough for a site that has important historic and cultural significance to his people.
"In seven generations, that's still going to be a Superfund site," Hill says. "For that amount of damage that they've done to the lake, it doesn't seem fair to the lake or to the people who use the lake."
Reconnecting To A 'Beautiful Jewel'
Ken Lynch, a regional director for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, believes more people will start using the lake once it's clean enough for swimming. "That means people can jump in the lake and enjoy the lake. You [can have] contact with the lake without concern of any contaminants impacting human health," Lynch says.
Longtime resident Al Dahler says people need to know the lake is changing. "The jokes [in the past] were that if you caught a fish here you'd glow," Dahler says. "Onondaga Lake is an environmental comeback in progress, and gradually we're learning to reconnect to this beautiful jewel." It may have been lost to the community for 100 years, but not too many summers from now people could again be swimming in Onondaga Lake.
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