Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / March 10-11, 2013

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

Lihue, Kauai –                       77  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –         74  
Molokai airport –                    71
Kahului airport, Maui –           80 
Kona airport, Hawaii     –    84   
Hilo airport, Hawaii –              72

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

Kaneohe, Oahu – 70
Lihue, Kauai – 60

Haleakala Summit –   37      (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 27      (13,000+ 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 – 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

Windward Oahu…Koolau Mountains

 
Wind Advisory for the Big Island Summits

Winter Weather Advisory…summits on the Big Island
 
Locally gusty Kona winds from the south to
southwest…followed by slightly cooler north
to northeast winds behind the cold front

A dissipating cold front will bring showers to Oahu,
and parts of Maui County

Here's a looping radar image, so we can keep
track of where showers are falling – and the 
location of the cold front right now –
and the closer view

~~~552am HST Monday morning: clear, calm
at my upcountry Kula, Maui weather tower,
the air temperature was 55.4F degrees~~

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

20       Mana, Kauai – NW
12       Kuaokala, Oahu – NNE
27       Molokai – SSW
22       Kahoolawe – SW
27       Kaupo Gap, Maui – SSW
38       Kaupulehu, Big Island – SW 

Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Sunday evening:
 
0.43     Puu Opae, Kauai
4.31     Waihee Pump, Oahu
3.00     Molokai
0.02     Kahoolawe
2.11     Pukalani, Maui
0.32     Waikii, 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 image…and finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.

                   ~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~ 

Our winds will be locally gusty from the south to southwest…then lighter northerly breezes in the wake of this slow moving cold front. Here's a weather chart showing a near 1033 millibar high pressure system far to the northeast of Hawaii. At the same time, we have a cold front somewhere between Oahu and Molokai…whose parent low is a gale to the north of the islands. Our local winds will locally gusty from the south and southwest ahead of and along the frontal boundary. These kona winds are blowing thanks to this late winter cold front, as it crawls across the island of Oahu towards Molokai. The front may move down across Molokai, then perhaps reaching Maui…although it may stall along the way? Slightly cooler northerly breezes will fill in behind the frontal passage…into the new week ahead.

Satellite imagery shows partly to mostly cloudy skies, except Kauai, associated with the cold front…now moving from Oahu towards Molokai. The overlying atmosphere remains shower prone, with most of those showers generally focused over the central islands. A trough of low pressure aloft is accompanying the cold front into our area, enhancing these showers. The island of Oahu has picked up the most rainfall so far, with 4.32" in the Koolau Mountains…at the time of this writing. This larger satellite picture shows the deep layered cloudiness associated with the frontal boundary. The slow moving leading edge has passed over Oahu, and may be able to crawl down towards Maui overnight. The back edge of this front has left Kauai in the clear, or mostly clear…while the diffuse front edge hasn't quite reached the Big Island, or not much of it at least.

Looking ahead, it appears that we'll have a continued period of unsettled weather…as we push into the new week. A northerly wind flow, although not expected to be strong, will keep slightly cooler than normal air temperatures in place…as the front gradually becomes a trough during the day Monday. Depending upon how much moisture is left over from this stalled or dissipating front, the north and northeast coasts and slopes will continue to see passing shower activity perhaps into Tuesday. Even further ahead, the models are trying to bring another cold front our way by next Friday into the weekend, more on that over the next few days as well.  I'll be back several more times this evening with more updates. Then, I'll have your next new weather narrative ready for the reading, early Monday morning.  I hope you have a great Sunday night wherever you happen to be spending it!  Aloha for now…Glenn.

Notice: This Wednesday, March 13th, I'll be flying from Maui to northern California, beginning a visit with family and friends…through April 11th. As usual, the daily weather forecasts on this website will remain available in my absence. I'll have more to say about this trip before leaving, although I wanted to give you a heads-up well before my departure.

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:  Tropical cyclone 19P (Sandra) remains active in the southwest Pacific, located approximately 350 NM northwest of Noumea, New Caledonia. TC 19P has 90 knot sustained winds, with gusts to near 110 knots. Here's the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) graphical track map, along with a satellite image.

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

Interesting:  Drugs that combat ageing may be available within five years, following landmark work led by an Australian researcher. The work, published in the March 8 issue of Science, finally proves that a single anti-ageing enzyme in the body can be targeted, with the potential to prevent age-related diseases and extend lifespans.

The paper shows all of the 117 drugs tested work on the single enzyme through a common mechanism. This means that a whole new class of anti-ageing drugs is now viable, which could ultimately prevent cancer, Alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes.

"Ultimately, these drugs would treat one disease, but unlike drugs of today, they would prevent 20 others," says the lead author of the paper, Professor David Sinclair, from UNSW Medicine, who is based at Harvard University. "In effect, they would slow ageing."

The target enzyme, SIRT1, is switched on naturally by calorie restriction and exercise, but it can also be enhanced through activators. The most common naturally-occurring activator is resveratrol, which is found in small quantities in red wine, but synthetic activators with much stronger activity are already being developed.

Although research surrounding resveratrol has been going for a decade, until now the basic science had been contested. Despite this, there have already been promising results in some trials with implications for cancer, cardiovascular disease and cardiac failure, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, fatty liver disease, cataracts, osteoporosis, muscle wasting, sleep disorders and inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and colitis (inflammatory bowel disease).

"In the history of pharmaceuticals, there has never been a drug that tweaks an enzyme to make it run faster," says Professor Sinclair, a geneticist with the Department of Pharmacology at UNSW.