Weather Details & Aloha Paragraphs

May 15-16 2007

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. 

Aloha Paragraphs

 
 Upcountry area of Olinda, Maui…
Photo Credit: flikr.com

The trade winds are slacking-off now, and will remain lighter than usual through the rest of this week into early next week. Weather maps show high pressure systems strung-out far to the NNW through the NE of the Hawaiian Islands Tuesday. The winds are coming into the state from the east to ESE, blowing in the light to locally moderate range. Wind speeds will bounce around between near calm to perhaps 20+ mph in those windiest locations during the afternoon hours. As we move into the weekend time frame, a trough of low pressure approaching from the west will knock our trade winds down another notch or two…ending up perhaps in the light and variable realms into the first couple of days next week.

Showers won’t be common with this light wind condition, at least through about Thursday or Friday…even in those typically wetter areas of the Aloha state. Since the air flow is coming in from the east and ESE, there will be a few showers arriving on those more or less windward exposures at night. At the same time, with the light winds, we’ll see a modified convective weather pattern, which will prompt some form of afternoon cloudiness over and around the mountains…resulting in a few showers here and there. The trough of low pressure, mentioned above, arriving this weekend, may enhance those upcountry afternoon showers.

It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kula, Maui as I begin writing this sunset commentary. The day was another beauty, with lots of warm sunshine beaming down. We will have to qualify that to very warm when considering the 88F degree high temperature in Kahului, Maui. The high clouds yesterday were quite thick, although today thinned out some. As you can see, but using the link to this satellite image, there are more cirrus clouds taking aim on the Aloha state. ~~~ If you had a chance to read down through the "weather packed" two paragraphs above, you’ll know we’re moving into a period of lighter than normal winds. It’s not common to see our trade winds falter this late in the spring season, although certainly not unheard of either. As the spring season progresses closer and closer to summer, it will become more difficult to keep the trade winds at bay, as they want to flood across the latitudes of the Hawaiian Islands…reaching for the equatorial trough of low pressure to our south. ~~~ Today was the first day of the 2007 hurricane season over in the eastern Pacific Ocean. There isn’t anything brewing over there at this time however, and we probably won’t see anything spinning for some time yet. Here in the central Pacific, where we find the Hawaiian Islands, the hurricane season waits until June 1st to start. ~~~ It’s just before sunset at the moment, and the last rays of the day are flooding into my Kula weather tower. The outside air temperature is 65.3F degrees, while at the the same time, down in Kahului, at the airport, it was 78F degrees. The warmest spot in the islands at the same time was the 80 degree reading in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. ~~~ I hope you have a pleasant and relaxed Tuesday night wherever you happen to be reading from. I’ll be back extremely early Wednesday morning, or at least that’s how it will feel when my alarm goes off at 4am…to begin updating the various pages on this website, ending up with this narrative page. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Hawaii Weather Today – TV program online now.  It’s not exactly like watching it on your television, but it’s a fairly close approximation. Each day’s new show will replace the previous days show (Monday through Friday) at some point between 10am and noon (HST) in Hawaii. If you click here, it will take you to the website where it can be viewed. I want to thank the kind folks at the Maui Media Lab, located in Paia, Maui for this opportunity to show what’s happening weatherwise here in Hawaiian Islands! By the way, you will need to have a quicktime viewer on your computer to receive the feed…you can get the free download here if it’s not already loaded on your machine.