Weather Details & Aloha Paragraphs

1.15 MOUNT WAIALEALE. KAUAI
0.42 SOUTH FORK KAUKONAHUA, OAHU
0.01 MOLOKAI
0.00 LANAI
0.03 KAHOOLAWE
0.21 HAIKU, MAUI
0.74 GLENWOOD, BIG ISLAND

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map…showing a 1030 millibar high pressure system located to the NNE of our islands. This high pressure cell will keep our local trade wind speeds in the moderate to fresh category Thursday…locally strong and gusty during the afternoon hours. An upper low currently to our east will  move westward over the state, with somewhat lighter trades starting Friday. Here’s a Weather Map Symbol page for clarification about what all those funny weather symbols mean.

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon cloud conditions.

Satellite Images – To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean…out from the islands. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image.

Tropical Cyclone Activity – The eastern Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15 through November 30…while the central Pacific runs from June 1 through November 30. The latest storm information for eastern Pacific can be found by clicking here. A storm tracking map can be found by clicking here. For the central Pacific, the latest information can be found by clicking here.

Aloha Paragraphs

Beautiful Hawaii

The trade winds will be part and parcel of our local Hawaiian Island weather picture through the next week. Wind speeds will be up and down, although through the rest of this work week, they will be quite breezy. A high pressure system, the source of our locally gusty trade winds, remains anchored to the NE of the islands. A glance at the latest weather map showed it weighing-in at 1028 millibars. This is what we would call moderately strong, but with an upper level low pressure system positioned to our south, it has steepened our pressure gradient across the islands sufficiently, so that our winds are now strong enough to have triggered a small craft advisory in the major channels between the islands…in addition to Maalaea Bay on Maui.

These winds will remain quite blustery through the end of this work week. Wind speeds will generally be running in the 10-30 mph range across the state. Those windiest spots, especially on Maui and the Big Island, where the winds get accelerated by physical terrain features, will have gusts well up into the 30+ mph range…with even a couple of 40+ top gusts during the afternoon hours. There will be some sheltered areas, where winds will be softer, more like 5-20 mph too. The latest computer forecast models suggest that as an upper level trough of low pressure, the one currently to our south, moves up over us by Friday into the weekend, our trade winds will soften a bit then.

We’ve had a showery cloud band move along the windward sides of the islands during the night into Wednesday. This has brought an increase in showers to those north and east facing coasts and slopes. This band of showers, which brought mostly a light variety of precipitation, will be moving off to the west, away from the Aloha state later today. There will a few showers falling from the clouds in the wake of this band, but nothing unusual. I mentioned that an upper trough of low pressure will be migrating from the south, to over the islands Friday into the weekend. As this trough moves over us, we’ll likely see an increase in windward showers then. The leeward sides may see a few showers, but most areas there will remain dry.

It’s early Wednesday evening here Kula, Maui, as I start this evening’s sunset commentary. There’s quite a contrast between the windward and leeward sides just now. The Kihei and Lahaina areas are still sunny as can be, while there are gray clouds dropping light showers along the windward sides. I saw a nice ainbow (what Maui rainbows aren’t nice!?) as I was driving up the Haleakala Highway, looking over towards Makawao town. It was another rather hot day here on Maui, with Kihei reaching near 90F degrees, as was the case over on Front Street in Lahaina. I’ve been working with the Maui News, and in particular with one of their new star reporters, on a story they’re doing on hurricanes in Hawaii. The story comes out this Sunday, and will land on the front page. I know that many of you over the years, those of you who haven’t seen me on TV, have wanted to see what I look like. I’ve been rather shy about posting a picture of myself on this website, so if you log onto the Maui News website this Sunday, you will finally have your opportunity to put a face with all these wild weather words. I hope you have a great Wednesday, and that you will join me here again on Thursday, for the next completely new weather narrative from paradise. Aloha for now…Glenn.