Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday…along with the minimums Tuesday:
76 – 70 Lihue, Kauai
82 – 74 Honolulu, Oahu
79 – 71 Molokai AP
82 – 71 Kahului AP, Maui
84 – 68 Hilo AP, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Tuesday evening:
5.60 Kilohana, Kauai
0.39 Kawailoa, Oahu
0.24 Puu Alii, Molokai
0.12 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.54 Kahakuloa, Maui
2.08 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Tuesday evening:
38 Lihue, Kauai – NNE
66 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu – SE
35 Molokai – NE
43 Lanai – NE
39 Kahaloowe – NNW
35 Maalaea Bay, Maui – N
50 Kohala Ranch, 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
Pacific storm track remains far north of Hawaiii
A weakening cold front will gradually dissipate as it moves through
the state into Wednesday
Clear to partly cloudy with cloudy areas locally…
dissipating cold front near Oahu moving southeast
into Maui County
Showers locally…light to moderately heavy, especially
along the frontal cloud band – looping radar image
Small Craft Advisory…for most coasts and channels statewide
High Surf Advisory…east facing shores through tonight
Gale Warning…for Hawaiian offshore waters beyond 40 nautical
miles out through 240 nautical miles – and across the Alenuihaha
and Pailolo Channels
Wind Advisory…all islands – 20-30 mph with gusts to 50 mph
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Strong and gusty trade winds…lasting into mid-week. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean. We find a high pressure system northwest, with an associated ridge extending eastward to the north of Hawaii. In addition, there’s low pressure systems far to the northeast of Hawaii. The tail-end of a dissipating cold front is dissipating over the western islands. As this cold front slowly moves down through the state into Wednesday, northeasterly winds are rushing in over the state…locally strong and gusty. These winds should taper off some during the second half of the work week, although may become much lighter ahead of another cold front approaching by the weekend, along with more volcanic haze locally then. Our winds will turn cooler from the north early next week, in the wake of the weekend cold front.
Here’s a wind profile…of the offshore waters around the islands – with a closer view
Here’s the Hawaiian Islands Sulfate Aerosol…animated graphic – showing vog forecast
A front arrived over Kauai yesterday…and is bringing showers as it gets pushed down into the state…by a high pressure system to the northwest. The associated moisture from this frontal boundary brought some solid rainfall to parts of Kauai. What’s left of it will move down across Oahu and Maui County into the night…with showers pushing over the Big Island into Wednesday morning. The bulk of these showers will fall along the windward coasts and slopes. The leeward sides, and especially the beaches, should have better weather, albeit with occasional showers being carried over to those areas on the strong and gusty trade winds. The computer models continue pointing towards drier conditions returning to the state as we get into the second part of this week through Friday. Showers may increase again as another cold front approaches this coming weekend. Drier weather and somewhat cooler weather will arrive early next week for several days.
Here in Maui County…It’s mostly clear over the leeward sides early this Tuesday morning, with a few clouds and showers along the windward sides. It’s been off and on windy all night, which continues this morning. Here in upcountry Kula we have an air temperature of 56.6F degrees well before sunrise. The temperature at near the same time was 73 degrees down in Kahului, 73 out in Hana…and 41 atop the Haleakala Crater. Meanwhile, Kahoolawe was 70 degrees, 67 at Lanai City, with 72 at the Molokai airport.
– Later afternoon, still windy at times, although mostly clear over our leeward sides, while clouds remain banked-up against the windward sides…with passing showers.
– Early evening, and the strong winds continue to come and go. First it’s really gusty and then the winds abate into near calm conditions…at least here at my place in Kula. Looking out over the ocean towards Molokai, it looks like the leading edge of this weakening cold front is approaching. I expect showers to increase over Maui County this evening into the night, hopefully some of them will be moderately heavy…we could use the rainfall. I went up the mountain this morning, to do a bit of skateboarding, and ended up sitting in my car after only a few runs, as the horizontally blowing showers arrived. The air temperature was 49 degrees up there, with strong winds blowing, although I was warm enough and cozy dry in my car…as I did some reading.
I’ll be back with many more updates on all of the above and below, I hope you have a great Tuesday 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 2015 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2016. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant. Here’s the 2015 hurricane season summary
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2016. 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 2015 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2016. 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 2015 North Pacific hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on May 15, 2016. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant. Here’s the 2015 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.
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, 2016. During the off-season, special tropical weather outlooks will be issued if conditions warrant. Here’s the 2015 hurricane season summary
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
>>> South Pacific Ocean:
Tropical Cyclone 11P (Winston) remains active in the Southwest Pacific Ocean, located 115 NM north-northwest of Niue, with sustained winds of 104 mph. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this system…and what the computer models are showing
>>> North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea:
Tropical Cyclone 13S (Uriah) remains active in the South Indian Ocean, located 820 NM south-southeast of Diego Garcia, with sustained winds of 132 mph. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map, along with a satellite image of this system…and what the computer models are showing
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: Better water management could halve the global food gap – Improved agricultural water management could halve the global food gap by 2050 and buffer some of the harmful climate change effects on crop yields. For the first time, scientists investigated systematically the worldwide potential to produce more food with the same amount of water by optimizing rain use and irrigation. They found the potential has previously been underestimated. Investing in crop water management could substantially reduce hunger while at the same time making up for population growth. However, putting the findings into practice would require specific local solutions, which remains a challenge.
“Smart water use can boost agricultural production — we’ve in fact been surprised to see such sizeable effects at the global level,” says lead-author Jonas Jägermeyr from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. In a water management scenario the scientists call ambitious, global kilocalorie production could rise by 40 percent, while according to UN estimates roughly 80 percent would be needed to eradicate hunger by the middle of this century. But even in less ambitious scenarios, results show that integrated crop water management could make a crucial contribution to filling the plates of the poor, says Jägermeyr. “It turns out that crop water management is a largely underrated approach to reduce undernourishment and increase climate resilience of smallholders.”
Large yield increase potential in China, Mexico, Australia
The scientists have run comprehensive biophysical computer simulations, constraining these in such a way that croplands do not expand into forests and no additional water resources are needed. As it is a global study, it provides detailed vegetation dynamics and water use effects in river basins — certainly too coarse to simulate farm-level conditions but suited to identify regional hotspots. For example, the yield increase potential of crop water management is found to be particularly large in water-scarce regions such as in China, Australia, the western US, Mexico, and South Africa.
“Assessing the potential is tricky: If upstream farmers reroute otherwise wasted water to increase irrigation and production, less water returns to downstream users and consequently this can affect their production,” says co-author and team leader Dieter Gerten. “Below the line, we found that the overall production increases. Still, this of course poses quite some distributional challenges. Also, a lot of local government regulation and incentives such as-micro credit schemes are needed to put crop water management into large-scale practice.”
Mulching and drip systems to counter climate change impacts
The scientists took into account a number of very different concrete water management options, from low-tech solutions for smallholders to the industrial scale. Water harvesting by collecting excess rain run-off for instance in cisterns — for supplementary irrigation during dry spells — is a common traditional approach in some regions such as the Sahel region in Africa, but is under-used in many other semi-arid regions such as Asia and North America. Mulching is another option — the soil gets covered either simply with crop residues left on the field, reducing evaporation, or with huge plastic sheets. Finally, a major contribution to the global potential is upgrading irrigation to drip systems.
It is especially under ongoing climate change that water management becomes increasingly important to reduce food risks. The reason is that global warming is likely to increase droughts and change rainfall patterns, so water availability becomes even more critical than before. Assuming a moderate CO2 fertilization effect — plants take up CO2 and could hence benefit from higher concentrations in the air, but the magnitude of this effect is still under debate -, the study shows that in most climate policy scenarios water management can counterbalance a large part of the regional warming impacts on farming. Yet if greenhouse-gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are not reduced at all, in a business-as-usual scenario, water management will clearly not suffice to outweigh the negative climate effects.
Given the planetary boundaries, decision-makers should look into water use
“Water management is key for tackling the greater sustainability challenge,” says Wolfgang Lucht, co-author of the study and co-chair of PIK’s research domain Earth System Analysis. “It has been an issue in many local and regional studies and its effects on farm level have been well demonstrated, but on the global level it has been somewhat neglected. The renewed Sustainable Development Goals — while stipulating sustainable agriculture among all nations — need to be based on more evidence on how to achieve it; they do not focus on water use very much. Since we’re rapidly approaching planetary boundaries, our study should indeed draw the attention of decision-makers of all levels to the potential of integrated crop water management.”
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