Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday:
Lihue, Kauai – 84
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 88 (record for Sunday – 92 in 1992, 1987)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Molokai airport – 85
Kahului airport, Maui – 87
Kona airport 86
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 83
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Sunday evening:
Honolulu, Oahu – 84
Hilo, Hawaii – 77
Haleakala Crater – 50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 43 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Sunday evening:
1.41 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.57 Punaluu Stream, Oahu
0.04 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.92 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.32 Glenwood, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing two near 1030 millibar high pressure systems generally to the north of our islands. Our local trade winds will remain active into the new week ahead.
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. Here's a tropical cyclone tracking map for the eastern and central Pacific.
Aloha Paragraphs
Trade winds, passing windward showers at times
The trade winds will increase Tuesday…remaining active through the rest of the week. Glancing at this weather map, we find two near 1030 millibar high pressure systems, generally to the north of our islands Sunday night. These high pressure cells run across the Pacific, from the International Dateline to our west, across the central into the eastern Pacific…to the Baja California coast of Mexico.
Our trade winds will remain active…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Sunday evening:
22 Port Allen, Kauai – SE
18 Honolulu, Oahu – NE
28 Molokai – NE
27 Kahoolawe – E
30 Kahului, Maui – NE
13 Lanai – NE
27 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 Sunday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find scattered lower level clouds, which are generally out over the ocean, although stretching over the islands locally. At the same time we find the northern edge of high cirrus clouds over the ocean to our south. There's also an area high or middle level clouds to the east of the Big Island as well. We can use this looping satellite image to see lower level clouds being carried along in the trade wind flow. Well down to our southeast and southwest there are lots of thunderstorms brewing as well. Checking out this looping radar image we see light to moderately heavy showers being carried along in the trade wind flow, bringing moisture to the windward sides of some of the islands.
Sunset Commentary: There still aren’t expected to be any major changes in our Hawaiian Island weather picture for the time being. As for minor differences from day to day, they will come and go, mostly in terms of wind speeds and rainfall amounts. There has been a temporary slowdown in the trade winds today, although the trade winds are expected to increase again Monday into Tuesday…lasting through the rest of the week.
Rainfall will be up and down, although nothing that’s especially unusual. This precipitation will fall most often along our windward sides. As has been the case for the last several weeks, our rainfall this time of year depends greatly upon just how much available moisture is located to our east through northeast. These offshore clouds of course get carried our way on the trade winds, as is shown on this looping satellite image. This animated satellite picture also shows the large area of high cirrus clouds to our south, which has backed off for the time being, and will allow more sunshine to beam down during the days.
This past Friday evening after work I went to see a new film in Kahului, called The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain…among many others. The impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950's following the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith. The critics are giving this film an impressive A-, while the viewers are much lower, handing out a rather luke warm C+. I found this to be a very interesting film, perhaps one of the most in several years. It was so different, especially considering that Brad Pitt and Sean Penn co-starred, along with lovely Jessica Chastain. Pitt and Penn both are more often in very different types of films. In actuality, the boy Jack and his brothers were the stars of the show, who held their own very well. There was hardly a smile in the film, and again it was over two hours long. There was an art aspect that was very strong, surprisingly so! I liked the artistic part very much, although it was a bit slow in places, and I questioned myself in the beginning, as to whether I would enjoy it. It turned out to be very deep, and touching too. I feel comfortable giving it a B+ grade, although not everyone would be scoring so high. It's certainly not for everyone, although I found myself strongly pulled into the emotionality of the film. It was one of those that by the end, I just sat there for several minutes and wallowed in the state of mind it let me in. Here's a trailer for this long two hour and 18 minute film.
Here in Kula, Maui, at around 5pm HST Sunday evening, skies were partly cloudy, and my weather deck is still a little wet from the last short shower that fell. There was another light shower that came in earlier this afternoon as well. As it turned out, there were other showers that fell on the leeward slopes on the other islands to. As the trade winds strengthen Monday onwards, those afternoon leeward showers will be limited. The one exception could be the Kona slopes, with the outside chance of another shower in the Kula, Ulupalakua, Keokea area here on Maui too. I stayed home all day today, and didn't even get around to taking my usual morning or evening walk, just chalk it up to laziness I guess. ~~~ I'm going to sign off now, although will be back with your next new weather narrative around 530am Monday morning. I hope you have a great Sunday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Water really is everywhere. Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. Looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar — one of the brightest and most violent objects in the cosmos — the researchers have found a mass of water vapor that's at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the world's oceans combined, and 100,000 times more massive than the sun.
Because the quasar is so far away, its light has taken 12 billion years to reach Earth. The observations therefore reveal a time when the universe was just 1.6 billion years old. "The environment around this quasar is unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water," says Matt Bradford, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and a visiting associate at Caltech.
"It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times." Bradford leads one of two international teams of astronomers that have described their quasar findings in separate papers that have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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