Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / May 27-28. 2011

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

Lihue, Kauai –                    80
Honolulu airport, Oahu –     86  (record high Friday: 89 – 1992, 1995, 1996, 2005)
Kaneohe, Oahu –                80
Molokai airport –                 83
Kahului airport, Maui –             84   
Kona airport –                    84
Hilo airport, Hawaii –          81

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

Barking Sands, Kauai – 84
Hilo, Hawaii – 73

Haleakala Crater –     46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 32 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)

Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Friday evening:

0.34     Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.45     South Fork Kaukonahua, Oahu
0.00     Molokai
0.00     Lanai
0.00     Kahoolawe
0.58     West Wailuiiki, Maui
1.09     Piihonua, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing two 1029 millibar high pressure systems to our north and northeast…which will be consolidating soon. Our local winds will be remain rather strong and gusty both Saturday and Sunday.

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. 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 13,500 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 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.

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. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here. 

 Aloha Paragraphs

Strong and gusty trades – a few windward showers

Our local winds will remain active from the trade wind direction through the holiday weekend…and beyond.  Glancing at this weather map, we find two moderately strong 1029 millibar high pressure systems located to our northeast…which will remain the primary source of our trades now. These trade winds will remain strong and gusty, with small craft wind advisories in force over those windiest areas around Maui County and the Big Island. The near 10,000 foot summit on Maui, the Haleakala Crater…has a wind advisory in effect through Saturday morning.

Our winds will be locally strong and gusty…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts, along with directions Friday evening:

33                 Port Allen, Kauai – NE 
33                 Honolulu, Oahu – NE 
33                 Molokai – NE
38                    Kahoolawe – ESE   
38                    Kapalua, Maui – E 
00                 Lanai  
38                    South Point, Big Island – NE   

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Friday night.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see clear to partly cloudy skies over and around the islands. Most of the clouds are located over the ocean, which are being carried westward over the ocean…in the gusty trade winds at times. We can use this looping satellite image to see areas of high clouds to our west, south and east. We could find high clouds eventually coming in over the state during the next couple of days. At lower levels of the atmosphere we can see cloud patches upstream of the islands, to the east of the state…which are being carried our way.  Checking out this looping radar image we see showery clouds over our surrounding waters, which are impacting the windward sides in places.

Sunset Commentary: As we prepare to launch off into a long holiday weekend, our weather should remain in good shape. The trade winds will prevail pretty much through the next month, and likely through most of the next three months. We can certainly count on them blowing through the next week with a high degree of certainty…putting us into the last part of our spring season.

There will be minor day to day variations in speed and direction, although most of us won’t notice those subtle changes. We’d be more apt to see the softening of the trades during the night into the early morning hours…and then see them strengthen during the later morning through the early evening hours. The winds aren’t usually quite this deep, which is allowing them to bring gusty winds all the way up to the 10,000 foot summit of the Haleakala Crater on Maui now.

Given the strong and gusty trade winds, they will carry moisture pockets our way, in an off and on manner. We can check out this looping satellite image to visualize these showery clouds arriving at times. We may see some off and on intrusions of high cirrus clouds during the next week as well. There are certainly no lack of those icy clouds to the southwest, south and southeast of the islands. They of course move in the opposite direction from the lower level trade wind born clouds. They reside much higher in the atmosphere, up where jet aircraft fly, thus they are directed by the jet stream flow, which often moves west to east…or northeast. We can see this happening by taking a quick glance at this looping satellite image.

Here in Kihei, Maui at 6pm Friday evening, island skies were mostly clear, with the trade winds breezing-it-up still pretty well as we head towards sunset. As noted above, winds were still gusting up well into the 30+ mph range pretty much wherever there is exposure. Otherwise, its a lovely evening, with generally fair weather prevailing through the upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend. I'm just about ready to head back upcountry to Kula, and already looking forward to my early weekend walk Saturday. I'll be back here before I go on that walk however, so look for your next Saturday morning weather narrative in the mornin'. I hope you have a great Friday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil has risen six-fold, according to recent satellite images from the National Institute for Space Research. Comparing data from March-April 2010 to the same period this year shows deforestation has increased from 103 square kilometers in 2010 to 593 square kilometers just one year later. Most of that deforestation is in the state of Mato Grasso, a center of agribusiness and the largest producer of soybeans in Brazil, contributing 27 percent of the country's last soybean harvest.

According to Brazil's Agriculture Ministry, soy output will increase 7.2 percent to 73.7 million tons. Still, the dramatic increase in deforestation has "taken the government by surprise." A government report released last December showed deforestation rates at a 22-year low.

But the recent data indicates a 27 percent increase from August 2010 to April 2011. Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira said the new data is "alarming" announcing the formation of a "crisis cabinet" to respond to the rapid increase in deforestation. "Our objective is to reduce deforestation by July," Teixeira said. Brazil's Forest Code specifies how much land a farmer can clear, a controversial issue of which the Chamber of Deputies has delayed voting for years.

Recently a version of the bill easing restrictions on farmers was near passage, but environmentalists managed to swing enough political and public support to delay the vote in the Chamber. Opponents to the environmentalists cite the need for economic development as reason to ease restrictions on farmers. Deputies are scheduled to take up debate the controversial Forest Code proposals as soon as today.

Interesting2: For decades, astronomers and climatologists have debated whether a prolonged 17th century cold spell, best documented in Europe, could have been caused by erratic behavior of the sun. Now, an American solar physicist says he has new evidence to suggest that the sun was indeed the culprit. The sun isn't as constant as it appears. Instead, its surface is regularly beset by storms of swirling magnetic fields.

As a result, like a teenager plagued with acne, the face of the sun often sprouts relatively dark and short-lived "sunspots," which appear when strong magnetic fields inhibit the upwelling of hotter gas from below. The number of those spots waxes and wanes regularly in an 11-year cycle.

However, even that cycle isn't immutable. In 1893, English astronomer Edward Maunder, studying historical records, noted that the cycle essentially stopped between 1645 and 1715. Instead, the sun was almost devoid of sunspots during this period. In 1976, American solar physicist John "Jack" Eddy suggested there might have been a causal link between this "Maunder Minimum" in the number of sunspots and the contemporaneous Little Ice Age, when average temperatures in Europe were a degree centigrade lower than normal.

One might expect the absence of dark spots to make the sun slightly brighter and hotter. But the absence of other signs of magnetic activity, such as bright patches of very hot gas known as faculae more than compensates for this effect. So in fact, the total energy output of the sun is lower during a solar minimum. If the minimum is prolonged, as it was in the second half of the 17th century, the dip in output might indeed affect Earth's climate.

Interesting3: Australia's huge cattle herd in the north might be burping less planet-warming methane emissions than thought, a study released on Friday shows, suggesting the cows are more climate friendly. Cattle, sheep and other ruminant livestock produce large amounts of methane, which is about 20 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. One cow can produce about 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

Half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and most of that is from sheep and cattle. Most of the cattle and sheep emissions are, contrary to popular belief, from burping. Scientists at Australia's state-backed research body the CSIRO say the amount of methane from cattle fed on tropical grasses in northern Australia could be nearly a third less than thought.

The findings were based on results from specially built respiration chambers using Brahman cattle fed tropical grasses and challenge old calculations used by the government to estimate emissions from cows. "The industry is more methane friendly than was previously thought based on the new measurements," research leader Ed Charmley told Reuters by telephone during a field day near Townsville in northern Queensland state.

About half of Australia's approximately 27 million head of cattle are in the north, with the northern cattle herd accounting for about 4.5 percent of the nation's total greenhouse gas emissions. A 30 percent reduction in emissions would total about 7.4 million tons, or roughly the amount of a large coal-fired power station.

Interesting4: The terms renewable energy and clean technology conjure up images of photovoltaic panels baking in the desert sun, wind turbines rotating lazily in the wind, and large dams generating hydro-power. However, there is another important and growing clean energy technology that the average consumer hasn’t heard of yet: waste heat recovery. Waste heat recovery employs a process that has been around since the 1960s called the organic Rankine cycle (ORC), which easily integrates into existing manufacturing infrastructures.

ORC units capture heat that is currently being released into the atmosphere and converts it into useable CO2-free electricity. This technology has a small footprint, approximately the size of a tractor trailer flatbed and interest in systems that use this energy generating skid is on the rise as companies look to maximize the efficiency of existing investments and infrastructures.

The market for waste heat recovery is virtually limitless. According to researchers at University California Berkley, the U.S. currently consumes about 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy per year. However, between 55 and 60 quadrillion BTUs are currently vented into the atmosphere as waste heat. With ORC technology these emissions are harnessed on-site to generate useable CO2-free electricity that is fed directly back into a manufacturing process.

Pulp and paper, lumber, refinery, cement and power plant operations are especially well-suited for waste heat recovery systems since they consume large amounts of electricity and maintain consistent waste heat streams with temperatures between 400° and 800°F. ORC employs environmentally benign refrigerants in a closed-loop system that turn waste heat into useable electricity.

Given its relative simplicity, carbon neutrality and diminutive physical footprint, ORC is one of the most inexpensive sources of renewable power generation. Also, its high utilization rate (95%) far eclipses the 25-35% utilization rates seen in other renewable technologies, such as solar and wind. A wave of new project development activity has occurred as a result of rising energy costs and growing environmental concern.

Recent improvements in the ORC manufacturing process have made the systems modular, customizable, and easily deployed. Also, the rise of independent project managers has also hastened adoption; allowing customers to focus on energy savings while project managers design, engineer, construct and operate the plants. Waste heat recovery delivers a win-win clean energy solution.

By tapping into existing but unused energy sources companies reduce energy spending, reduce carbon footprints and reduce dependence on non-renewable sources of energy. And that's why waste heat is about to become a lot more relevant.