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

78  Lihue, Kauai
82  Honolulu, Oahu
80  Molokai
83  Kahului, Maui
85  Kona, Hawaii
81  Hilo, Hawaii


Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops on Maui and the Big Island…as of 743pm Monday evening:

 

Kailua Kona – 78
Hilo, Hawaii – 72


Haleakala Summit –   37 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 30 (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.

 


Aloha Paragraphs



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Returning moderate trade winds, lasting through Thursday…
then vog carrying southeast winds Friday into the weekend

A few showers locally…otherwise good weather on tap

December Full Moon tonight…the smallest of the year

 




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

12  Port Allen, Kauai – ENE
17  Kuaokala, Oahu – NNE
10  Molokai – NW
18  Lanai – NW
14  Kahoolawe – NE
13  Lipoa, Maui – NNW
18  Waikoloa, Big Island – WNW


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

0.28  Lihue, Kauai
0.16  Makua Range, Oahu
0.00  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.00  Kahoolawe
0.01  Kaupo Gap, Maui
0.34  Kapapala Ranch, 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 ~~~



Returning trade winds through Thursday…becoming lighter from the southeast Friday into the weekend. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the Pacific Ocean. We find two high pressure systems far to the northeast of the state. Then we have a weaker high pressure cell well to the north of us, moving away to the north. At the same time we see storm low pressure systems to our northwest, with an associated cold front just on the other side of the International Dateline. High pressure will build to our north and northeast tonight into Tuesday, with moderately strong trade winds continuing through Thursday. The next cold front will approach the Kauai end of the island chain Friday into the weekend…with vog carrying southeast winds returning then.


We’ll see a few showers…generally along our windward coasts and slopes. Satellite imagery shows very few clouds over or near the islands offshore. There is an area of towering cumulus over the ocean to the northeast. Here’s the looping radar image, showing hardly any showers falling anywhere, the most generous few were along the southeast side of the Big Island…at the time of this writing. Today was a transition day, as the recent front dissipates, and the leftover showers quickly became less frequent. The models are bringing the trade winds back now, along with a modest return of windward biased showers. These returning trades a little later in the week, may bring generous rainfall to our windward sides of the islands through Friday morning. I’ll be back early Tuesday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.



World-wide tropical cyclone activity:


Atlantic Ocean: The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th…and has now ended


Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean

Caribbean Sea:

Gulf of Mexico:

Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

Eastern Pacific: The Eastern Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15th through November 30th…and has now ended. Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.


Central Pacific Ocean: The Central Pacific hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th…and has now ended. Here’s the 2013 hurricane season summary


Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)


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 03S (Amara) is now active in the South Indian Ocean. Here’s a JTWC graphical track map…along with a satellite image.

Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)



Interesting:  NASA dating rocks on Mars – How old is Mars? The relative ages of Mars and Earth is of great interest to astronomers. Did the planets in our solar system originate at the same time, or did they form at different times?


Although researchers have determined the ages of rocks from other planetary bodies, the actual experiments—like analyzing meteorites and moon rocks—have always been done on Earth. Now, for the first time, researchers have successfully determined the age of a Martian rock—with experiments performed on Mars. The work, led by geochemist Ken Farley of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), could not only help in understanding the geologic history of Mars but also aid in the search for evidence of ancient life on the planet.


Many of the experiments carried out by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission’s Curiosity rover were painstakingly planned by NASA scientists more than a decade ago. However, shortly before the rover left Earth in 2011, NASA’s participating scientist program asked researchers from all over the world to submit new ideas for experiments that could be performed with the MSL’s already-designed instruments. Farley, W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry and one of the 29 selected participating scientists, submitted a proposal that outlined a set of techniques similar to those already used for dating rocks on Earth, to determine the age of rocks on Mars. Findings from the first such experiment on the Red Planet—published by Farley and coworkers this week in a collection of Curiosity papers in the journal Science Express—provide the first age determinations performed on another planet.


The paper is one of six appearing in the journal that reports results from the analysis of data and observations obtained during Curiosity’s exploration at Yellowknife Bay—an expanse of bare bedrock in Gale Crater about 500 meters from the rover’s landing site. The smooth floor of Yellowknife Bay is made up of a fine-grained sedimentary rock, or mudstone, that researchers think was deposited on the bed of an ancient Martian lake.


In March, Curiosity drilled holes into the mudstone and collected powdered rock samples from two locations about three meters apart. Once the rock samples were drilled, Curiosity’s robotic arm delivered the rock powder to the Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) instrument, where it was used for a variety of chemical analyses, including the geochronology—or rock dating—techniques.


One technique, potassium-argon dating, determines the age of a rock sample by measuring how much argon gas it contains. Over time, atoms of the radioactive form of potassium—an isotope called potassium-40—will decay within a rock to spontaneously form stable atoms of argon-40. This decay occurs at a known rate, so by determining the amount of argon-40 in a sample, researchers can calculate the sample’s age.


Although the potassium-argon method has been used to date rocks on Earth for many decades, these types of measurements require sophisticated lab equipment that could not easily be transported and used on another planet. Farley had the idea of performing the experiment on Mars using the SAM instrument. There, the sample was heated to temperatures high enough that the gasses within the rock were released and could be analyzed by an onboard mass spectrometer.


Farley and his colleagues determined the age of the mudstone to be about 3.86 to 4.56 billion years old. “In one sense, this is an utterly unsurprising result—it’s the number that everybody expected,” Farley says.