Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / August 6-7, 2012

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

Lihue, Kauai –                     83   
Honolulu airport, Oahu –      86  
Kaneohe, Oahu –                 MM
Molokai airport –               87
Kahului airport, Maui –     87 (record high temperature Monday 94F / 1972)  
Kona airport –                     85 
Hilo airport, Hawaii –            81

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain top around the state…as of 8pm Monday evening:

Barking Sands,  Kauai – 81
Hilo, Hawaii – 75

Haleakala Summit –      M  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit –   45 (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

 

Trade winds, windward showers
at times…nice weather 

As this weather map shows, we have moderately strong high pressure systems located far to the north-northwest, north and northeast of the islands…with a low pressure system to our west-northwest. Our local trade winds will remain moderately through this week. 

The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Monday evening:

24            Port Allen, Kauai – NE
30            Kuaokala, Oahu – NE 
29            Molokai – ENE 
36            Kahoolawe – ESE
31            Kahului, Maui – ENE 
35            Lanai – NE
28            South Point, Big Island – ENE

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 Monday evening:
 
0.84               Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.39               Nuuanu Upper, Oahu
0.02               Molokai
0.00               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe
0.17               Puu Kukui, Maui
1.20               Kaloko-Honokohau, Big Island  

                                        Sunset Commentary: 

There's little change expected in our moderately strong trade wind flow across the Hawaiian Islands…through the next week. We continue to find moderately strong high pressure systems (weather map) located far to the northeast through north-northwest of Hawaii…supporting 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 patchy low level clouds to our east and northeast…which when they arrive will prompt localized shower activity. At the same time, there are lots of middle level clouds around too, especially near Kauai and towards Oahu at the time of this writing…associated with a low pressure system to the west-northwest.

Here in Kula, Maui at 545pm Monday evening, it was partly cloudy and light breezes…with an air temperature of 80.8F degrees. As mentioned above, the trade winds will continue to blow well into the future. Winds will remain quite breezy, at least in gusts…ranging between 30-35 mph in those windiest places around the state. If we look at this satellite image, providing a larger view than the one above, we see a large area of low pressure to our west and northwest. Despite this low pressure, and the high and middle level clouds that will sweep into the state at times, especially around Kauai and Oahu, our normal summertime trade wind weather conditions will prevail. The occasional windward biased showers that are active now, should ease up, with somewhat drier conditions expected Tuesday for a day or two. Towards the end of the work week we may see a slight uptick in windward showers, especially around Maui County and the Big Island. I'll be back with your next new weather narrative early Tuesday morning, I hope you have a great Monday 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

A gale low centered about 250 miles south southwest of Midway atoll, or more than 1200 miles west of Lihue Hawaii, is moving toward the southwest near 10 mph. Environmental conditions are not conducive for tropical cyclone development within this area, and there is a low chance, near 0 percent, of this system becoming a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours. The low will likely move west of the date line later today, into the western Pacific. Here's a satellite image showing where this area is in relation to the Hawaiian Islands…and the International Dateline.

Eastern Pacific Ocean:  A new tropical cyclone has spun up in the eastern Pacific, called tropical storm Gilma…located about 585 miles south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. Sustained winds were 40 mph, moving west-northwest away from the Mexican coast. Here's the NHC satellite image showing this area.

Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean:  Tropical storm Ernesto (5L) remains active in the Caribbean Sea, located about 220 miles east of Chetumal, Mexico. Maximum sustained winds are 65 mph, which is expected to become a hurricane today. It will impact near the Belize coast or southern Yutacan east coast strongly, and then slip back down to a tropical storm as it crosses the Yucatan Peninsula…into the Gulf of Mexico. Ernesto may attain hurricane status again briefly in the warm waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico…before making a second landfall along the coast of mainland of Mexico. Here's the official NHC graphical track map / Here's a satellite image of this storm / Here's the hurricane model output for TS Ernesto.

Meanwhile, a second area of disturbed weather remains active in the far eastern Atlantic, located several hundred miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. This tropical disturbance has a low 20% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone during the next 24 hours.

Finally, a third area of disturbed weather is active in the Atlantic, which has re-developed near former tropical cyclone Florence, about 1000 miles east of the Northern Leeward Islands, having a low 10% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone. 

Here's a satellite image showing tropical storm Ernesto…and the two areas of disturbed weather in the central and east Atlantic.

Western Pacific Ocean:  Tropical storm Haikui (12W) remains active in the western Pacific, located approximately 225 NM northeast of south-southeast of Shanghai, China. Sustained winds were 6 knots, with gusts to near 75 knots. It is expected to impact the eastern China coast later tonight as a weakening tropical storm. Here's the JTWC graphical track map, along with a NOAA satellite image.

Meanwhile, Tropical storm (13W) is also active in the western Pacific, located approximately 745 NM north-northwest of Wake Island. Sustained winds were 35 knots, with gusts to near 45 knots. It is expected to remain offshore from any islands or land masses during its life cycle. 13W is weakening quickly now, and it gains latitude, taking it over cooler sea water temperatures. Here's the JTWC graphical track map, along with a NOAA satellite image.

South Pacific Ocean:  There are no active tropical cyclones

South and North Indian Oceans: There are no active tropical cyclones

Interesting:  A recent rise in deadly, debilitating, and expensive heat waves was caused by climate change, argues a new statistical analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Climatologists found that extreme heat waves have increased by at least 50 times during the last 30 years. The researchers, including James Hansen of NASA, conclude that climate change is the only explanation for such a statistical jump.

"This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened," Hansen, a prominent scientist and outspoken climate change activist, wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

"Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change."

Between 1981 and 2010, extreme heatwaves covered 10 percent of the world, according to the paper, which is 50 to 100 times greater than the 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the Earth's surface covered by extreme heat from 1951-1980.

The analysis not only finds that extreme heat waves (defined as over three standard deviations above the base period) have expanded due to a warming world, but that moderate heat (over half of a standard deviation) has more than doubled: jumping from 33 percent to 75 percent. Many climatologists refer to this phenomenon as "loading the climate dice."

"In a normal climate without global warming, two sides of the die would represent cooler-than-normal weather, two sides would be normal weather, and two sides would be warmer-than-normal weather. Rolling the die again and again, or season after season, you would get an equal variation of weather over time," Hansen explains in his op-ed.

But now he says, climate change has shifted the dice: instead of only two sides being warmer than average, it should be four sides with one of those sides representing extreme heat. "The climate dice are now loaded to a degree that a perceptive person old enough to remember the climate of 1951—1980 should recognize the existence of climate change, especially in summer," the scientists write in the PNAS paper.

Given their findings, the researchers also argue it is safe to say that recent heat waves—like last year's drought in Texas and Oklahoma, Russia's heatwave and wildfires in 2010, and the European heatwave of 2003—were caused by climate change. "[These events] almost certainly would not have occurred in the absence of global warming with its resulting shift of the anomaly distribution," the scientists write.

"In other words, we can say with high confidence that such extreme anomalies would not have occurred in the absence of global warming." Europe's heat wave in 2003, which was the continent's hottest summer since at least 1540, led to 70,000 deaths above the summer average.

Likewise, Russia's 2010 heatwave increased the mortality rate by 56,000, and helped spawn massive wildfires destroying one-fifth of the country's globally-important wheat crop. Meanwhile, last year's drought in the Southern U.S. cost the state of Texas, where it was most severe, over $7 billion in damages.

The scientists write that while local weather conditions obviously play a role in all extreme weather events, climate change has become a game-changer. "It is not uncommon for meteorologists to reject global warming as a cause of these extreme events, offering instead a meteorological explanation.

For example, it is said that the Moscow heat wave was caused by an extreme atmospheric 'blocking' situation, or the Texas heat wave was caused by La Niña ocean temperature patterns," the researchers write. "Certainly the locations of extreme anomalies in any given case depend on specific weather patterns.

However, blocking patterns and La Niñas have always been common, yet the large areas of extreme warming have come into existence only with large global warming." With such findings, Hansen told the Associated Press that the current heatwave and drought across wide-swathes of the U.S. is also likely linked to climate change.

Although bold, the findings of the PNAS paper are by no means alone. Over the past few years, climatologists have increasingly found connections between extreme weather events and climate change. A recent study found that warming in the Indian and Pacific oceans likely increased drought conditions across East Africa, while another found that climate change had increased the odds of the Russian heat wave by 20 times.

But it was not just summer temperatures: another study found that climate change made an abnormally warm November in Britain last year 60 times more likely. Experts say the only way to combat climate change is to aggressively cut global carbon emissions, which hit record levels last year.

Currently, carbon is emitted primarily by burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas. In addition, the destruction of forests, peat lands, mangroves, and other ecosystems release stored carbon into the atmosphere, worsening the situation.

While most of the world's nations have agreed to tackle climate change, to date actions have done little to slow emissions growth. At current rates emissions are projected to double from pre-industrial levels by 2050.