Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Friday…along with the low temperatures Friday:
86 – 76 Lihue, Kauai
86 – 76 Honolulu, Oahu
86 – 77 Molokai AP
89 – 74 Kahului AP, Maui
88 – 78 Kona AP
85 – 73 Hilo AP, Hawaii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands…Friday evening:
1.18 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.17 Nuuanu Upper, Oahu
0.17 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
1.09 West Wailuaiki, Maui
1.23 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…Friday evening:
28 Port Allen, Kauai
25 Kuaokala, Oahu
27 Molokai
27 Lanai
32 Kahoolawe
33 Kahului AP, Maui
32 Kealakomo, 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.
Aloha Paragraphs
Former Howard is approaching to the east of Hawaii, while Tropical Storm Ivette is moving westward…still well to the east-southeast of the islands
What the computer models are showing for Tropical Storm Ivette, which will weaken to a remnant low pressure system…well before getting into range of the Hawaiian Islands
Retired Howard is still a swirl of low clouds…with associated thunderstorms to the east-northeast of the islands
The outer shower bands associated with former Howard are to our east
A few showers, mostly windward – Looping radar image
Small Craft Advisory…Maalaea Bay, Pailolo Channel, and the Alenuihaha Channel
High Surf Advisory…large surf building on east shores Saturday
Flash Flood Watch…for all islands Sunday and Monday
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Moderately strong and gusty trade winds will remain active…through the weekend. Here’s the latest weather map, showing moderately strong high pressure systems far northwest and north-northeast of Hawaii. The models suggest our local trade winds will remain active through this weekend into Monday. As we move into Tuesday and Wednesday, the trade winds should strengthen some. It’s still too early to know what kind of wind conditions that Tropical Cyclone Ivette will bring our way later next week. The latest models shows that Ivette will have been downgraded to a remnant low pressure system soon after entering our central Pacific, from the eastern Pacific…stay tuned.
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
We’ll find a typical trade wind weather pattern through the first part of today. Thereafter, we’ll see an area of tropical moisture, associated with what is former TC Howard arriving later today, first over the eastern islands. At this point, it looks like rains will become locally heavy Saturday night into early Monday morning. This will occur as deep tropical moisture associated with the remnants of Howard moves over the island chain. This threat could include thunderstorms and possible flash flooding across some areas of the state, especially Sunday and Monday. A more normal shower pattern will return Tuesday into Wednesday…although not for long!
We could see yet another area of tropical moisture approaching the state around next Thursday or so…as whatever is left of TC Ivette moves into range. Based on what some of the models are suggesting, we could see Ivette bring the threat of another episode of heavy rainfall, and possibly breezy conditions, stay tuned…as this outlook will go through many changes between now and then. The good thing is that the long range forecast from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) shows Ivette weakening steadily as it crosses over into our central Pacific. It is expected to be retired, and lost it’s strong winds…before getting into range of the islands. Nonetheless, we will need to keep a close eye on Ms. Ivette going forward.
Marine environment details: The Small Craft Advisory (SCA) for winds continues in the Pailolo Channel, the Alenuihaha Channel, and Maalaea Bay due to strong trade winds in these areas. Winds through these regions are expected to stay elevated into Saturday, ahead of the associated trough from remnants of former Tropical Cyclone Howard. As the trough moves across the islands Saturday night through Sunday night, winds may continue to be breezy along the northern periphery which would most likely impact waters around the smaller islands depending on the path. Winds will be lighter and more variable near the trough axis.
Surf along the east facing shores will be rough and choppy today, but below advisory levels. An east swell from Howard is expected to ramp-up this weekend, boosting surf heights above advisory levels Saturday or Saturday night. Some of the easterly forerunners may arrive later today and tonight. A SCA may go into effect for a combination of winds and/or seas beyond Saturday for some coastal waters.
Small south swells will continue to arrive, but surf will remain below advisory levels for south facing shores. No other significant swells are expected.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity
>>> Atlantic Ocean: No active tropical cyclones
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: No active tropical cyclones
>>> Gulf of Mexico:
Former Earl is quickly dissipating…located 105 miles east of Mexico City. Here’s a satellite image – Final Advisory
Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico
1.) Meanwhile, an area of cloudiness and thunderstorms associated with a trough of low pressure is located over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Some gradual development is possible before the system moves inland over the southeastern United States in a couple of days. Regardless of development, heavy rainfall over northern Florida is anticipated.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…20 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…30 percent
2.) A tropical wave is producing disorganized cloudiness and showers just north of Puerto Rico and the adjacent Atlantic. An area of low pressure could form in the middle of next week between Florida and Bermuda while the activity moves west-northwestward and then northward over the Atlantic.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…20 percent
Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
>>> Eastern Pacific:
Tropical Storm 10E (Ivette) remains active in the eastern Pacific…located 1375 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii
Tropical Storm Ivette will begin a weakening trend as it enters our central Pacific basin later Sunday
>>> Meanwhile, a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms extends near the southern coast of Mexico between the Gulf of Tehuantepec and Manzanillo. This disturbance is expected to move west-northwestward and merge with the remnants of Atlantic Tropical Depression Earl, forming an area of low pressure near the southwestern coast of Mexico during the next day or so. Conditions are conducive for this system to become a tropical depression early next week while it moves northwestward toward the Baja California peninsula.
Finally one of these developing tropical cyclones won’t be heading out towards the Hawaiian Islands!
* Formation chance through 48 hours…medium…60 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…80 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: No active tropical cyclones
1.) Isolated thunderstorms are sheared from the post-tropical low
of former tropical cyclone Howard, which is located about 350
miles northeast of Hilo, Hawaii, and moving westward at 15 mph.
Marginal sea surface temperatures, and hostile upper level winds
are expected to inhibit redevelopment.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent
2.) The National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida is issuing advisories on Tropical Storm Ivette, located over 1450 miles east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. Ivette is expected to cross 140W into the Central Pacific Hurricane Center area of responsibility Sunday.
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
Tropical Storm 07W (Omais) remains active in the northwestern Pacific, located about 676 NM southeast of Yokosuka…here’s the JTWC graphical track map, with a satellite image, and what the computer models are showing
>>> South Pacific Ocean: No active tropical cyclones
>>> North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea: No active tropical cyclones
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: NASA Satellite Reveals How Much Saharan Dust Feeds Amazon’s Plants – What connects Earth’s largest, hottest desert to its largest tropical rain forest?
Here’s a video of the Saharan Dust in 3-D
The Sahara Desert is a near-uninterrupted brown band of sand and scrub across the northern third of Africa. The Amazon rain forest is a dense green mass of humid jungle that covers northeast South America. But after strong winds sweep across the Sahara, a tan cloud rises in the air, stretches between the continents, and ties together the desert and the jungle. It’s dust. And lots of it.
For the first time, a NASA satellite has quantified in three dimensions how much dust makes this trans-Atlantic journey. Scientists have not only measured the volume of dust, they have also calculated how much phosphorus – remnant in Saharan sands from part of the desert’s past as a lake bed – gets carried across the ocean from one of the planet’s most desolate places to one of its most fertile.
A paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, provides the first satellite-based estimate of this phosphorus transport over multiple years, said lead author Hongbin Yu, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland who works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. A paper published online by Yu and colleagues Jan. 8 in Remote Sensing of the Environment provided the first multi-year satellite estimate of overall dust transport from the Sahara to the Amazon.
This trans-continental journey of dust is important because of what is in the dust, Yu said. Specifically the dust picked up from the Bodélé Depression in Chad, an ancient lake bed where rock minerals composed of dead microorganisms are loaded with phosphorus. Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plant proteins and growth, which the Amazon rain forest depends on in order to flourish.
Nutrients – the same ones found in commercial fertilizers – are in short supply in Amazonian soils. Instead they are locked up in the plants themselves. Fallen, decomposing leaves and organic matter provide the majority of nutrients, which are rapidly absorbed by plants and trees after entering the soil. But some nutrients, including phosphorus, are washed away by rainfall into streams and rivers, draining from the Amazon basin like a slowly leaking bathtub.
The phosphorus that reaches Amazon soils from Saharan dust, an estimated 22,000 tons per year, is about the same amount as that lost from rain and flooding, Yu said. The finding is part of a bigger research effort to understand the role of dust and aerosols in the environment and on local and global climate.
Dust in the Wind
“We know that dust is very important in many ways. It is an essential component of the Earth system. Dust will affect climate and, at the same time, climate change will affect dust,” said Yu. To understand what those effects may be, “First we have to try to answer two basic questions. How much dust is transported? And what is the relationship between the amount of dust transport and climate indicators?”
The new dust transport estimates were derived from data collected by a lidar instrument on NASA’s Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation, or CALIPSO, satellite from 2007 though 2013.
The data show that wind and weather pick up on average 182 million tons of dust each year and carry it past the western edge of the Sahara at longitude 15W. This volume is the equivalent of 689,290 semi trucks filled with dust. The dust then travels 1,600 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, though some drops to the surface or is flushed from the sky by rain. Near the eastern coast of South America, at longitude 35W, 132 million tons remain in the air, and 27.7 million tons – enough to fill 104,908 semi trucks – fall to the surface over the Amazon basin. About 43 million tons of dust travel farther to settle out over the Caribbean Sea, past longitude 75W.
Yu and colleagues focused on the Saharan dust transport across the Atlantic Ocean to South America and then beyond to the Caribbean Sea because it is the largest transport of dust on the planet.
Dust collected from the Bodélé Depression and from ground stations on Barbados and in Miami give scientists an estimate of the proportion of phosphorus in Saharan dust. This estimate is used to calculate how much phosphorus gets deposited in the Amazon basin from this dust transport.
The seven-year data record, while too short for looking at long-term trends, is nevertheless very important for understanding how dust and other aerosols behave as they move across the ocean, said Chip Trepte, project scientist for CALIPSO at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, who was not involved in either study.
“We need a record of measurements to understand whether or not there is a fairly robust, fairly consistent pattern to this aerosol transport,” he said.
Looking at the data year by year shows that that pattern is actually highly variable. There was an 86 percent change between the highest amount of dust transported in 2007 and the lowest in 2011, Yu said.
Why so much variation? Scientists believe it has to do with the conditions in the Sahel, the long strip of semi-arid land on the southern border of the Sahara. After comparing the changes in dust transport to a variety of climate factors, the one Yu and his colleagues found a correlation to was the previous year’s Sahel rainfall. When Sahel rainfall increased, the next year’s dust transport was lower.
The mechanism behind the correlation is unknown, Yu said. One possibility is that increased rainfall means more vegetation and less soil exposed to wind erosion in the Sahel. A second, more likely explanation is that the amount of rainfall is related to the circulation of winds, which are what ultimately sweep dust from both the Sahel and Sahara into the upper atmosphere where it can survive the long journey across the ocean.
CALIPSO collects “curtains” of data that show valuable information about the altitude of dust layers in the atmosphere. Knowing the height at which dust travels is important for understanding, and eventually using computers to model, where that dust will go and how the dust will interact with Earth’s heat balance and clouds, now and in future climate scenarios.
“Wind currents are different at different altitudes,” said Trepte. “This is a step forward in providing the understanding of what dust transport looks like in three dimensions, and then comparing with these models that are being used for climate studies.”
Climate studies range in scope from global to regional changes, such as those that may occur in the Amazon in coming years. In addition to dust, the Amazon is home to many other types of aerosols like smoke from fires and biological particles, such as bacteria, fungi, pollen, and spores released by the plants themselves. In the future, Yu and his colleagues plan to explore the effects of those aerosols on local clouds – and how they are influenced by dust from Africa.
“This is a small world,” Yu said, “and we’re all connected together.”
Email Glenn James: 
Marian Says:
Thank you for a very interesting article indeed regarding the Saharan dust and feeding the Amazon’s plants.
~~~ Hi Marian, you are very welcome, thanks for a taking the time to let me know…I appreciate that.
Aloha, Glenn