Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday…along with the minimums Wednesday:
85 – 75 Lihue, Kauai
89 – 77 Honolulu, Oahu
85 – 75 Molokai
91 – 75 Kahului AP, Maui – the record high temperature for Wednesday was 94
92 – 79 Kailua Kona AP
88 – 73 Hilo, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Wednesday evening:
3.62 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
1.61 Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
0.46 Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.92 Puu Kukui, Maui
1.47 Glenwood, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Wednesday evening:
17 Poipu, Kauai – NE
27 Kuaokala, Oahu – NE
24 Molokai – N
24 Lanai – NE
33 Kahoolawe – ENE
29 Kapalua, Maui – NNE
27 PTA West, Big Island – NW
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.
Aloha Paragraphs
Lots of clouds and showers to our southwest and south
Here’s a wind profile…of the area around the islands
Thunderstorms offshore to the west,
southwest, south and well southeast
Clouds along our windward sides with some showers –
and a large area of unsettled weather southwest over
the ocean
There are showers in our area…especially the Big Island
looping radar image
TSUNAMI THREAT MESSAGE
Earthquake
* MAGNITUDE 8.3
* DEPTH 6 MILES
* NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL CHILE
TSUNAMI WAVES THAT CAN BE A HAZARD TO SWIMMERS AND BOATERS AS
WELL AS TO PERSONS NEAR THE SHORE AT BEACHES AND IN HARBORS AND
MARINAS ARE NOW AFFECTING THE STATE OF HAWAII. THIS HAZARD COULD
CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS. THE SITUATION IS BEING MONITORED
CLOSELY AND THE ADVISORY WILL END WHEN THE HAZARD HAS PASSED.
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
The trade winds will remain in place through Friday…then veer to the east-southeast or even southeast this weekend into early next week. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a wind profiler of the central Pacific. We find high pressure to the north and northeast of the state, protecting us from low pressure systems…and their associated colds fronts. Our winds are arriving from the trade wind direction at this time. This in turn will keep a late summer trade wind weather pattern in place for the time being. These trades will give way to east-southeasterly or southeasterly winds weekend into early next week.
There will be windward showers…and some elsewhere at times too. The leeward beaches will see fewer showers, although will get into the act at times locally…especially along the Kona coast and slopes during the afternoon hours. We’ll likely find moisture being carried our way from the east-southeast…with the threat of heavier showers returning by the weekend. These showers should focus their efforts most effectively along the windward coasts, and over the mountain slopes too. There’s a chance we could see a few thunderstorms, along with localized flooding as this unsettled weather pattern unfolds into early next week.
Here on Maui…It’s 550am Wednesday morning, it looks clear to partly cloudy in the still faint early morning light. It’s just light enough now, for me to see that there are scattered low and middle level clouds, and some streaky high cirrus clouds too. These upper level icy cirrus will light up a nice pink or orange at sunrise.
– We’re into the early evening hours now, under clear to partly cloudy skies, with a few cloudy areas around the mountains…and along the windward coasts.
I’ll be back with many more updates on all of the above and below, I hope you have a great Wednesday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
>>> Atlantic Ocean:
Tropical Depression 09L remains active, located 1070 NM east of the Lesser Antilles, with sustained winds of 35 mph. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this strengthening system…along with what the computer models show
1.) Shower activity associated with a broad area of low pressure located about 600 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands has changed little in organization during the past few hours. Environmental conditions are expected to be conducive for the formation of a tropical depression during the next day or two while this system moves west-northwestward at 10 to 15 mph over the central tropical Atlantic.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…high…70 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…80 percent
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: There are no active tropical cyclones
>>> Gulf of Mexico: There are no active tropical cyclones
1.) A large area of disturbed weather extending from the southeastern Gulf of Mexico northeastward across Florida is associated with a broad surface trough interacting with an upper-level trough. This system is expected to move northeastward and spread heavy rains over portions of the Florida peninsula during the next day or two. A low pressure area could form over the southwestern Atlantic this weekend, and conditions there could become a little more conducive for tropical or subtropical cyclone development.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…10 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…30 percent
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: There are no active tropical cyclones
1.) A large area of disorganized cloudiness and thunderstorms located several hundred miles south of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula is associated with a weak area of low pressure. Some gradual development of this system is possible by this weekend while it moves slowly northwestward.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…20 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…30 percent
Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.
Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
>>> Central Pacific: There are no active tropical cyclones
1.) An area of low pressure is located about 1200 miles southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, and around 400 miles southwest of Johnston island. Showers and thunderstorms associated with this system have been developing near a low level circulation center, and gradual strengthening is possible over the next couple of days as the area moves slowly toward the north or northwest.
Here’s a satellite image of this disturbance…along with what the computer models are showing
* Formation chance through 48 hours, medium…50 percent
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
Typhoon 20W (Krovanh) remains active, located 197 NM southeast of Iwo To, Japan, here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this strengthening…along with what the computer models show. This typhoon has sustained winds of 109 mph, with gusts of 132 mph.
>>> South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
>>> North and South Indian Oceans: There are no active tropical cyclones
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: New study finds massive eruptions likely triggered mass extinction – Around 252 million years ago, life on Earth collapsed in spectacular and unprecedented fashion, as more than 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species disappeared in a geological instant. The so-called end-Permian mass extinction — or more commonly, the “Great Dying” — remains the most severe extinction event in Earth’s history.
Scientists suspect that massive volcanic activity, in a large igneous province called the Siberian Traps, may have had a role in the global die-off, raising air and sea temperatures and releasing toxic amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over a very short period of time. However, it’s unclear whether magmatism was the main culprit, or simply an accessory to the mass extinction.
MIT researchers have now pinned down the timing of the magmatism, and determined that the Siberian Traps erupted at the right time, and for the right duration, to have been a likely trigger for the end-Permian extinction.
According to the group’s timeline, explosive eruptions began around 300,000 years before the start of the end-Permian extinction. Enormous amounts of lava both erupted over land and flowed beneath the surface, creating immense sheets of igneous rock in the shallow crust. The total volume of eruptions and intrusions was enough to cover a region the size of the United States in kilometer-deep magma. About two-thirds of this magma likely erupted prior to and during the period of mass extinction; the last third erupted in the 500,000 years following the end of the extinction event. This new timeline, the researchers say, establishes the Siberian Traps as the main suspect in killing off a majority of the planet’s species.
“We now can say it’s plausible,” says Seth Burgess, who received his PhD last year from MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and is now a postdoc at the U.S. Geological Survey. “The connection is unavoidable, because it’s clear these two things were happening at the same time.”
A singular event
Around the time of the end-Permian extinction, scientists have found that the Earth was likely experiencing a sudden and massive disruption to the carbon cycle, abnormally high air and sea temperatures, and an increasingly acidic ocean — all signs of a huge and rapid addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Whatever triggered the mass extinction, scientists reasoned, must have been powerful enough to generate enormous amounts of greenhouse gases in a short period of time.
The Siberian Traps have long been a likely contender: The large igneous province bears the remains of the largest continental volcanic event in Earth’s history.
“It’s literally a singular event in Earth history — it’s a monster,” Burgess says. “It makes Yellowstone … look like the head of a pin.”
It’s thought that as the region erupted, magma rose up through the Earth’s crust, essentially cooking sediments along the way and releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.
“The question we tried to answer is, ‘Which came first, mass extinction or the Siberian Traps? What is their overall tempo, and does the timing permit magmatism to be a trigger for mass extinction?’” Burgess says.
Dates pinned
For the answer, Burgess, Bowring, and colleagues traveled to Siberia on multiple occasions, beginning in 2008, to sample rocks from the Siberian Traps. For each expedition, the team traveled by boat or plane to a small Siberian village, then boarded a helicopter to the Siberian Traps. From there, they paddled on inflatable boats down a wide river, chiseling out samples of volcanic rock along the way.
“We’d have a couple of hundred kilos of rocks, and would go to the market in Moscow and buy 15 sport duffle bags, and in each we’d put 10 kilos of rocks … and hope we could get them all on the plane and back to the lab,” Burgess recalls.
Back at MIT, Burgess and Bowring dated select samples using uranium/lead geochronology, in which Bowring’s lab specializes. The team looked for tiny crystals of either zircon or perovskite, each of which contain uranium and lead, the ratios of which they can measure to calculate the rock’s age. The team dated various layers of rock to determine the beginning and end of the eruptions.
They then compared the timing of the Siberian Traps to that of the end-Permian extinction, which they had previously determined using identical techniques.
“That’s important, because we can compare green apples to green apples. If everything is done the same, there’s no bias,” Burgess says. “Now we’re able to say magmatism definitely preceded mass extinction, and we can resolve those two things outside of uncertainty.”
Richard Ernst, a scientist-in-residence at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, says the new timeline establishes a definitive, causal link between the Siberian Traps and the end-Permian extinction.
“This paper nails it,” says Ernst, who was not involved in the study. “Given that they have dated a portion of the Siberian Traps occurring just before, during, and only for a short time after the extinction, this is the ‘smoking gun’ for this large igneous province being fully correlated with the extinction. At this point, additional dating and other studies will simply provide more details on the link.”
Now that the team has resolved the beginning and end of the Siberian Traps eruptions, Burgess hopes others will take an even finer lens to the event, to determine the tempo of magmatism in the 300,000 years prior to the mass extinction.
“We don’t know if a little erupted for 250,000 years, and right before the extinction, boom, a vast amount did, or if it was more slow and steady, where the atmosphere reaches a tipping point, and across that point you have mass extinction, but before that you just have critically stressed biospheres,” Burgess says. “Now we’ve pinned it down in time, and others can go in with other techniques to get a more fully fleshed out timeline. But we need it to start someplace, and that’s what we’ve got.”
This research was funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation.
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