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

Lihue, Kauai –                       77  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –         80
 
Molokai airport –                    76

Kahului airport, Maui –           79 

Kona airport, Hawaii     –    83 
 
Hilo airport, Hawaii –              78

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops around the state…as of 510am Wednesday morning:

Kaneohe, Oahu – 72
Barking Sands, Kauai – 66

Haleakala Summit    M     (near 10,000 feet on Maui)

Mauna Kea Summit – 30      (13,000+ feet on the Big Island) 

Hawaii’s MountainsHere’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 – if it's working.

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.  The 2012 hurricane season is over in the eastern and central Pacific…resuming on May 15th and June 1st 2013.

 

Aloha Paragraphs

http://cdn.bestdestinationwedding.com/b/b9/b9395225_kapalua-bay-small.jpg
Just for the record, the ocean is still warm here in the islands…despite it
being winter – stick your toes in and see what I mean!


Windward showers tonight…lots of sunshine at most
leeward beaches Wednesday – trade winds rule!

Gale Warning for those windiest channels around Maui
and the Big Island of Hawaii

Wind Advisory for the windiest areas on both Maui and
the Big Island of Hawaii

High Wind Warning for the summits on the Big Island…
with gusts over 60+ mph at times

,
Small Craft Advisory for gusty trade winds for all marine
zones across the Hawaiian Islands

High Surf Advisory along all east facing shores

~~~541am HST Tuesday evening: clear to partly cloudy and
calm…at my upcountry Kula, Maui weather tower:
the air temperature was 51.1F
degrees~~~


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

28       Port Allen, Kauai – NE
42       Kuaokala, Oahu – NE

25       Molokai – NE
45       Kahoolawe – NE

40       Kapalua, Maui – NE

42       Kamuela airport, Big Island – NE 

Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Tuesday evening:

 
0.57     Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.87     Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu

0.02     Molokai

0.00     Lanai
0.00     Kahoolawe

1.22     Puu Kukui, Maui

1.47     Saddle Quarry, Big Island


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 imageand finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.


                   ~~~ Hawaii Weather Commentary ~~~
 


Our trade winds will remain strong and gusty, reaching 30-40+ mph in gusts…even up to near 50 mph at times over the next day or two. Here's a weather chart showing high pressure systems far to the northeast of Hawaii. At the same time, we see storm and gale low pressure systems far to the north-northeast and northwest. Our trade wind weather pattern will prevail, with the winds continuing to be stronger than normal this week.

Small craft wind advisory flags remain up over all coastal and channel waters…statewide. Wind Advisories remain active, over those most exposed island areas of Maui and the Big Island. At the same time, Gale Warnings remain necessary over those channels fronting Maui and the Big Island as well. As you can see, there's lots of warnings and advisories, in relation to the gusty trade winds across our Hawaiian island chain…as we head into mid-week! Looking ahead, a little lighter trade wind flow Thursday, followed by another boost Friday and Saturday, then down a notch Sunday into early next week. Despite these minor fluctuations, the breezy trade winds will prevail throughout.

Satellite imagery shows low clouds destined for our windward sides tonight, bringing passing showers…then somewhat drier conditions in general on Wednesday. This larger satellite picture continues to show that large area of bright white, high level cloudiness, well to the south and east of the state. The lower level moisture to our east and northeast, being carried our way on the gusty trades, will bring passing showers to our islands at times tonight into the morning. However, the overall trend in terms of precipitation, will be on the down swing…with fewer windward biased showers through Thursday.

It looks like showers may pick back up, modestly at some point later Friday, into the weekend time frame. Meanwhile, the leeward sides should bask in lots of warm daytime sunshine, as they have been lately. The main thing will be increasingly strong trade winds. I'll be back a couple more times with more updates on this locally blustery situation that prevails now. By the way, these windy episodes are quite common during the late winter period, which typically overlap right into our spring season here in the central north Pacific trade wind belt. I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you're spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn. 

World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean Sea:
  There are no active tropical cyclones

Gulf of Mexico: There are no active tropical cyclones

Eastern Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones

Central Pacific Ocean:  There are no active tropical cyclones

Western Pacific Ocean:   There are no active tropical cyclones

South Pacific Ocean:  There are no active tropical cyclones

North and South Indian Oceans: Tropical cyclone 17S (Rusty) is dissipating as it moves inland over northwest Australia…located approximately 65 NM east of Port Hedland, Australia. Sustained winds are 75 knots, with gusts to 90 knots (86-104 mph). Here's the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) graphical track map, and a satellite image. – Final Warning

Interesting:  Dinosaurs often are depicted with very long necks. Nowadays we have the giraffe with a long neck who seem to have evolved this feature due to the need to eat leaves higher up. So why and how the dinosaur with its long neck?

Researchers say the how is helped by hollow neck bones. The largest creatures to ever walk the Earth were the long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs known as the sauropods. These vegetarians had by far the longest necks of any known animal.

The dinosaurs' necks reached up to 50 feet in length, six times longer than that of the current world-record holder, the giraffe, and at least five times longer than those of any other animal that has lived on land.

Several anatomical features enabled this extreme dinosaur elongation, including: absolutely large body size and quadrupedal stance providing a stable platform for a long neck; a small, light head that did not orally process food; cervical vertebrae that were both numerous and individually elongate; an efficient air-sac-based respiratory system; and distinctive cervical architecture.

"They were really stupidly, absurdly oversized," said researcher Michael Taylor, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Bristol in England. "In our feeble, modern world, we're used to thinking of elephants as big, but sauropods reached 10 times the size elephants do.

They were the size of walking whales." Among living animals, adult bull giraffes have the longest necks, capable of reaching about 8 feet long. The giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant.

Its chief distinguishing characteristics are its extremely long neck and legs and its distinctive coat patterns. It stands 16—20 feet tall and has an average weight of 3,500 pounds. When it comes to extinct animals, the largest land-living mammal of all time was the rhino-like creature Paraceratherium, which had a neck maybe 8.2 feet.

The flying reptiles known as pterosaurs could also have surprisingly long necks, such as Arambourgiania, whose neck may have exceeded 10 feet. As to why sauropods evolved such long necks, there are currently three theories.

Some of the dinosaurs may have used their long necks to feed on high leaves, like giraffes do. Others may have used their necks to graze on large swaths of vegetation by sweeping the ground side to side like geese do.

This helped them make the most out of every step, which would be a big deal for such heavy creatures. Scientists have also suggested that long necks may have been sexually attractive, therefore driving the evolution of ever-longer necks; however, Taylor and his colleagues have found no evidence this was the case.