Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday…along with the minimums Thursday:
81 – 74 Lihue, Kauai
84 – 75 Honolulu, Oahu
81 – 73 Molokai
84 – 70 Kahului AP, Maui
84 – 72 Kailua Kona AP
84 – 67 Hilo, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Thursday evening:
1.17 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.54 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.02 Waikapu Country Club, Maui
0.11 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Thursday evening:
17 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
24 Kii, Oahu – NE
27 Molokai – ENE
27 Lanai – NE
35 Kahoolawe – NE
27 Maalaea Bay, Maui – NNE
29 Pali 2, Big Island – NE
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
The Pacific storm track remains well north of our islands…
with just the tail-ends of cold fronts getting close to Hawaii
Here’s a wind profile…of the offshore waters
around the islands – with a closer view
There’s a large area of thunderstorms well offshore south of
Hawaii…we’ll need to keep an eye out in this area through the
next week, as we could see an out of season tropical cyclone
spin-up somewhere in the area southeast to southwest of Hawaii
Off and on increases in clouds…mixed with clear skies /
there are some high cirrus south of the Big Island
Passing showers locally windward…otherwise mostly dry
looping radar image
Small Craft Advisory…windiest coasts and channels
High Surf Advisory north and west shores of Kauai, Oahu
and Molokai, and north shores of Maui and the Big Island
A High Surf Warning for our northwest shores is possible
this weekend
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Our trade winds will continue…although with day-to-day variability in strength. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean. We find a moderately strong high pressure system to the northeast of the state, moving eastward. Meanwhile, there’s a new high pressure cell well northwest of Hawaii, that’s moving east as well. At the same time, we find low pressure systems far to our north and northwest…with the tail-end of a cold front just north of our islands. The trade winds will remain active through the rest of this week, blowing generally in the moderately strong realms statewide. The trade winds will likely ease up some Friday and Saturday, and then again early next week, and could veer to the southeast at times…bringing volcanic haze our way locally. The models show the trade winds picking back up around the middle of next week briefly. The models are now showing another weak cold front approaching the state next weekend, with easing winds from the southeast again.
A few showers along our windward sides locally…leeward areas will remain generally dry. We’ll find generally dry weather continuing, especially along our leeward sections…with occasional passing showers over the windward sides. Satellite pictures show the tail-end of an old cold front stalled near Kauai. We may see another weak front or even two approaching the state with time, although they will probably give us a pass…as the last several have done. The long range models are suggesting that our drier than normal weather conditions may extend all the way through next week. These sorts of dry, late autumn into winter weather situations are typical of the strong El Nino conditions that prevail now. If this dry reality continues into the new year ahead, we could be looking at a serious drought by the spring months into next summer. This doesn’t mean that we won’t have several soaking rainstorms this winter however.
Here on Maui…It’s mostly clear across the island early this Thursday morning, with just a few clouds and a couple of random showers along the windward sides. Here in upcountry Kula, it’s calm and clear…with an air temperature of 51.9F degrees at my Kula weather tower. This temperature is in contrast to the warmer 70 degree reading down near sea level in Kahului and out in Hana at the same time.
– We’re into the early afternoon hours now, with hardly a cloud in the sky! We’ve been talking about dry weather lately, and this is a perfect example of that reality. There’s just light breezes here in upcountry east Maui, while there were gusts to 32 mph at the same time…down along the coast near the Kahului AP.
– Skies were clear to partly cloudy at sunset, with still those robust trade winds having their way with our windward coasts and slopes. Showers have been few and far between, which will continue over the next several days. Kauai looks like it may have a modest increase in showers tonight, and perhaps even some parts of Oahu. The air temperature at 615 here in Kula was 62.6 degrees, while down at the Kahului AP, at about the same time, it was a warmer 78 degrees…with 77 at both Hana and Kapalua.
I’ll be back with many more updates on all of the above and below, I hope you have a great Thursday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
>>> Atlantic Ocean: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant.
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant.
>>> Gulf of Mexico: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant.
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 last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 North Pacific hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on May 15, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant.
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: The central north Pacific hurricane season has officially ended. Routine issuance of the tropical weather outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, special tropical weather outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant.
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
>>> South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
>>> North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea: There are no active tropical cyclones
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: 18,000 fires rage in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest – It’s not just Indonesia’s forests and peatlands that are burning – the Amazon is suffering almost as badly, with over 18,000 fires last month in Brazil alone, write Jos Barlow & Erika Berenguer. The future is looking hot and fiery.
As world leaders meet in Paris to tackle carbon emissions, here in the Amazon we are watching forests burning unchecked, releasing carbon into the atmosphere, destroying sensitive ecosystems and making breathing difficult.
There are forests fires in the Amazon every year, but 2015 is exceptional. We’ve been investigating the issue in the rainforest around Santarém, a city on the south bank of the Amazon, 800km from the sea.
For the past five weeks we have woken up under a thick veil of smoke. For days we are barely able to see the sun. On many days last week visibility was less than 50 metres and the sun, once yellow, would rise red – if at all.
Even our clothes and our hair smell constantly of smoke. We have been living in the middle of a 24-hour barbecue in the middle of the world’s largest tropical forest.
The El Niño phenomenon is contributing to this year’s increased temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns, which means a more intense dry season across large swathes of the usually-humid tropics.
Widespread fires in south-east Asian peatland forests have released huge amounts of smoke and made the air so polluted that Indonesia set up evacuation ships for affected people. These fires are estimated to have emitted more carbon in just a few weeks than the entire German economy over a whole year.
Rainforests aren’t used to fire
Although fires in the Amazon region have attracted much less attention than in Indonesia the situation is still alarming. In November alone, the Brazilian Amazon experienced 18,716 fires according to satellite data.
They are are mainly started by farmers to clear areas of fallow or to get rid of weeds in pastures. However, planned fires often escape the targeted area, invade surrounding forests and burn the vegetation.
These escaped fires may appear small and harmless but rainforests, unlike savannahs or temperate forests, have not co-evolved with periodic fires. This makes them particularly vulnerable. As a result, human-induced fires can kill up to 50% of the larger trees and most of the small-stemmed ones.
We still don’t know how long it takes for a tropical rainforest to recover from fires, both in terms of biomass and biodiversity – they might never be able to regain their former glory. This is exactly one of the aims of the joint UK-Brazil research project that has brought us to the Amazon.
What we do know is that all those dead trees open gaps in the forest canopy, which allow more light and wind to reach the forest floor. The forest then becomes hotter and drier and more prone to burn once again.
Almost all fires are left to burn themselves out
The smoke and fires have made life very uncomfortable. Yet for local people there is no escape. The smoke cloud that daily covers the region has serious consequences for human health, which led 12 Amazonian cities to declare a state of emergency back in October.
Task forces have been assigned to combat fires, but resources are thin and the region is too vast. Almost all fires are left to burn themselves out.
This year’s El Niño has shown how vulnerable the world’s largest tropical forest can be to extreme droughts. And recent forecasts have shown that such events are likely to triple by 2100. If 2015 can be used as an example, we are to expect more forest fires and much greater carbon emissions from tropical forest countries.
If world leaders at the UN climate conference are serious about limiting global warming to 2C, they must learn from this hazy present, acting immediately to protect the remaining forested areas in the humid tropics. Otherwise, we can expect a fiery future.
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