Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / March 24-25, 2011

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday:

Lihue, Kauai –                    80
Honolulu airport, Oahu –      83
Kaneohe, Oahu –                78
Molokai airport –                 79
Kahului airport, Maui –         81
Kona airport –                       84
Hilo airport, Hawaii –           79

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Thursday evening:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 82F
Kaneohe, Oahu – 75

Haleakala Crater –     missing (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34 (under 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals late Thursday evening:

1.57    Kilohana, Kauai
0.71    Manoa Valley, Oahu
0.10    Molokai
0.00    Lanai 
0.00    Kahoolawe
0.55    Puu Kukui, Maui
5.71    Kawainui Stream, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a large 1032 millibar high pressure system to the north of Hawaii. Our trade winds will be locally strong and gusty through Saturday.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with this Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around 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. Finally, here's a Looping IR satellite image, making viewable the clouds around the islands 24 hours a day. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image.

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam 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 web cams 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 weather conditions.

Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Here’s a tracking map covering both the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here. Of course, as we know, our hurricane season ended November 30th here in the central Pacific…and begins again June 1st.

 Aloha Paragraphs

Strong and gusty trade winds continue
 
 

The trade winds will remain stronger than normal into Friday, then gradually relax slightly in strength through the holiday weekend…into early next week.  According to this weather map, we find a very large 1032 millibar high pressure system to the north of the islands Thursday night. We still have our small craft wind advisory flags up over all the coastal and channel waters statewide. A wind advisory remains active over almost the entire state as well. Finally, all the strong trade wind action is generating large breaking waves along our east facing beaches…thus we have a high surf advisory along those shores. These trades will carry showers our way at times, especially along the windward sides. The south and west facing leeward sides will be drier, although they could see some showery clouds flying over from the windward sections at times too. These showers will likely be most noticed during the first day of the upcoming weekend.

Trade winds will be strong and gusty…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Thursday evening:

38 mph        Port Allen, Kauai – E
32              Honolulu, Oahu – NE
31              Molokai – NE
36              Kahoolawe – E 
37              Kahului, Maui – NE
21              Lanai Airport – NE    
38                South Point, Big Island – NNE

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Thursday night.  This large University of Washington satellite image shows high cirrus clouds just to the west and southwest to south of the islands….streaking over our area at times.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see a band of clouds which brought showers to our windward sides last night, now having moved to the south of the state. We can use this looping satellite image to see high cirrus clouds creeping in our direction from the west and southwest. Checking out this looping radar image shows a drying process happening along our windward sides, at least for the moment. One particular area of showery clouds is moving by offshore from the south and southeast side of the Big Island…at the time of this writing.

Friday is a local holiday called Prince Kuhio Day, so I have off from work in Kihei. So, I'll be going to see a new film this evening in Kahului. There are several films that look good to me, and to tell you the truth I'm not quite sure which I'll decide on. Ok, I just made an executive decision, and will be seeing The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe…among others. The synopsis: Mickey Haller is a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back of his Lincoln sedan. Haller has spent most of his career defending garden-variety criminals, until he lands the case of his career: defending Louis Roulet, a Beverly Hills playboy accused of rape and attempted murder. But the seemingly straightforward case suddenly develops into a deadly game of survival. I've seen the trailer for this film a couple of times, and it appeals to me. the critics are giving this film a B grade, while the viewers have given it an A-. I'll let you know what I think when I get back online Friday morning. Here's a trailer for this two hour hour film, which is being called a thriller.  

In sum: the trade wind weather pattern is acting according to the script, with blustery winds holding firm. We have small craft wind advisories, a wind advisory, and a high surf advisory as well. The trade winds have been gusting between 35 and 47 mph today. We’ll likely see little change in this windy episode through Friday, with a possible modest downward trend this weekend into the new week. The trade winds aren’t scheduled to dissipate all that much, but a modest reduction seems to be in the offing starting by Saturday or Sunday.

As for rainfall, the most impressive thing recently has been the rather considerable precipitation occurring down on the Big Island. As of early this evening, 5.71” of the wet stuff had fallen at the Kawainui Stream gauge. There were several 2.00 to 3.00” plus readings on the Big Island during the last 24 hours…no other gauge even came close statewide. The first of two rain bands have moved through the state, which is now to the south of the state for the most part. It appears that a second will arrive with time, bringing more showers to the windward sides, which may be able to travel across the small islands into the leeward sides too.  Actually, most areas will be fine Friday. I hope you have a great Thursday night, I'll catch up with you Friday morning. Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: The northeastern part of Myanmar was hit with a magnitude 6.8 earthquake Thursday night (local time). One woman was reported killed when a roof collapsed in Chiang Rai. The quake was felt in Bangkok, 480 miles to the south of the epicenter, where buildings reportedly swayed.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was six miles deep and that it is possible that 600,000 people could feel shaking anywhere from strong to violent and that damage could be widespread. Thai television showed people running into the streets in their pajamas.

Two small aftershocks measuring 4.8 and 5.4 in magnitude followed. There was no tsunami created because the quake was located too far inland. The quake was comparable in magnitude and depth to last year's Haiti earthquake.

Interesting2: Since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit northeast Japan on March 11, the country has seemed to be caught in a disastrous spiral of devastation. The earthquake and its resultant tsunami wiped out entire villages and have displaced more than 500,000 Japanese citizens.

The Japanese now also fear more lasting damage in the form of nuclear crisis, after explosions occurred at the nation's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. The widespread suffering caused by this crisis may be unimaginable for people watching thousands of miles away, but new analysis from the World Bank helps to put the catastrophe into context.

A World Bank report released this week shows the Japanese disaster to be one of the most costly in recent memory. The report estimates the quake's economic toll at $122 to 235 billion U.S. dollars, and furthermore estimating that the country could take five years to recover. The report also says that 15,214 are dead or missing.

The catastrophe in Japan is sure to be remembered as one of the greatest disasters of modern times. The high-magnitude quake, plus its widespread repercussions, puts it among the world's most costly recent disasters. The human and economic costs also far outweigh those of Japan's last major earthquake, the Kobe earthquake in 1995.

But in terms of the GDP of the countries hit by these disasters, Japan's current situation is overshadowed by several other recent disasters. The below table compares the quake with other recent natural disasters in terms of death toll and cost of recovery, as well as that economic cost as a percentage of countries' GDPs at the times the disasters happened.

Interesting3: Imagine being able to charge your cell phone in a matter of seconds or your laptop in a few minutes. That might soon be possible, thanks to a new kind of nanostructured battery electrode developed by scientists at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The researchers found that their electrode can charge and discharge up to 100 times faster than existing devices while holding the same amount of energy. High-storage batteries that could charge and discharge quickly might make a number of still-marginal technologies much more attractive.

For example, if you could recharge an electric car in minutes rather than hours, filling up your battery at a charging station would take no longer than the amount of time it takes to buy a tank of gas. And batteries that gave up their stored energy quickly could mean uninterrupted solar power, pitching in when the sun goes behind a cloud and solar cells stop producing.

Electrical storage devices known as capacitors charge and discharge very quickly, but because they hold their charge on the surface of metal plates, their storage capacity is limited. Batteries, on the other hand, can store much more energy because they hold their charge inside the bulk of a material, usually an oxide or a phosphate compound located inside the cathode.

Unfortunately, because these materials are not good conductors of electric charge, it takes a long time to get the charge in or out of a battery. Scientists have tried to get around this problem in the past by adding electrical conductors to the energy-storage material, but this reduces the material's volume, so it tends to lower the battery’s capacity.

University of Illinois materials scientist Paul Braun and his colleagues came up with a novel solution, published online this month in Nature Nanotechnology. They built a tiny metal lattice with so many nooks and crannies that when it's filled with a charge-storage material, the electrons in the material never have far to go before reaching the metal and being conducted away.

Interesting4: The system is the first to offer consumers a simple way to charge their EVs with the ease of hands-free, automatic technology. Google is famous for giving the digital generation what it wants, so it only makes sense that the search giant would branch out into other technologies it feels are worth of its attention.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that they would already be dabbling in smart grid technologies, and positioning themselves to be a leader in the future of both energy creation and distribution. Recently, the interwebs have been all aflutter over the fact that Google is trialing a Plugless Power charging station for electric vehicles at its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters.

Developed by Evatran, Plugless Power is based on technology similar to that of the electric toothbrush, which has been used in electrical transformers for more than 100 years. The system streamlines the charging of electric vehicles and extended-range hybrids by eliminating the nuisance of the cord and the plug.

For those that have been hesitant to purchase an electric vehicle because they fear what would happen if they stray too far without a charging station, Plugless Power could be the technology to sway their choice.

Interesting5: Investors and policy makers are increasingly advocating desalination technologies that use seawater to make freshwater. As reviewed in an EcoSeed Special Report, the interest in desalination technologies is growing due to the fact that there is insufficient fresh water to meet the daily drinking and sanitation needs of all those inhabiting the planet.

Desalination involves the process of removing salt from sea or brackish water to produce drinkable water. According to the International Desalination Association, there are over 13,000 desalination plants worldwide producing more than 12 billion gallons of water a day. Although this may seem like a lot, this represents only 0.2 percent of global water consumption.

A report by Lux Research indicates that to meet the demands of a growing human population, worldwide desalinated water supply must triple by 2020. This report indicates that desalination is feasible, as the global water desalination market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5 percent over the next 10 years.

While desalination is garnering considerable interest, it is not price competitive with traditional water sources. The construction, operation and maintenance costs make desalination at least three times as expensive as traditional sources.

Some argue that reverse osmosis (a method of passing saltwater through a membrane filter at high pressure) may be less expensive than distillation methods commonly used. The American Membrane Technology Association estimated that existing traditional water supplies cost 90 cents to $2.50 per 1,000 gallons produced. Brackish desalination technologies range from $1.50 to $3 for the same amount of water, and seawater desalination costs from $3 to as much as $8 per 1,000 gallons.

Interesting6: A new research report published online in The FASEB Journal suggests that pregnant mothers who eat high sugar and high fat diets have babies who are likely to become junk food junkies themselves. According to the report, which used rats, this happens because the high fat and high sugar diet leads to changes in the fetal brain's reward pathway, altering food preferences.

Not only does this offer insight into the ever-increasing rate of human obesity, but it may also explain why some people easily resist fatty and sugary foods, while others seem hopelessly addicted. "These results will help us to better help women about diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding for giving their infants the best start in life," said Beverly Muhlhausler, Ph.D., co-author of the study from the FOODplus Research Centre in the School of Agriculture Food and Wine at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, Australia.

To make this discovery, Muhlhausler and colleagues studied two groups of rats, which during pregnancy and lactation, were either fed standard "rat chow" or a junk food diet made up of a selection of common human foods high in fat and high in sugar. After the baby mice were weaned, the pups from both groups were allowed to select their own diets from either the same range of junk food or the standard rat chow.

Brains from some of the pups also were collected at different times after birth and measured for the levels of the "feel good" chemicals (dopamine and opioids) and the receptors that these chemicals act upon. The scientists found that the group of rats whose mothers had eaten the junk food diet had higher levels of the receptor for opioids after they were weaned.

This group also chose to eat more of the fatty foods as compared to the pups whose mothers ate the standard rat chow. This suggests that infants whose mothers eat excessive amounts of high-fat, high-sugar junk foods when pregnant or breastfeeding are likely to have a greater preference for these foods later in life.

"How ironic that your mother nags you to eat your fruits and vegetables, but it could have been her actions that helped you to prefer junk food!" said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "Perhaps in the future, studies like these will convince pregnant moms to go heavier on the green vegetables and a little lighter on the ice cream and Twinkies."