Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday:
Lihue, Kauai – 86
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 88 (record for Thursday – 93 in 1995)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Molokai airport – 85
Kahului airport, Maui – 87
Kona airport 84
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 Thursday evening:
Port Allen, Kauai – 86
Princeville, Kauai – 77
Haleakala Crater – 50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 46 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Thursday evening:
0.12 Hanalei River, Kauai
0.29 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.01 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.02 Kahoolawe
1.01 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.60 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
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. This web cam is 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…a few showers –
high cirrus clouds eastern islands
The trade winds will become softer as we get into the weekend…into early next week. Glancing at this weather map, it shows a near 1019 millibar high pressure system to the northeast of our islands….with its associated ridge extending westward to the north of Kauai. Our local trade winds will be light to moderately strong through Friday, strongest during the afternoon hours. These trade winds will break down quite a bit during the weekend, and remain light through the first couple of days of the new work week. The trade winds will likely begin to recover around next Wednesday onwards.
Our trade winds will remain active…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Thursday evening:
28 Port Allen, Kauai – E
27 Honolulu, Oahu – NE
29 Molokai – NNE
25 Kahoolawe – ESE
29 Kahului, Maui – NE
17 Lanai – NE
23 Upolu 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 Thursday evening. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find low clouds generally offshore of the islands, hidden quite a bit by the overriding high cirrus clouds…especially over the Big Island and Maui County. We can use this looping satellite image to see the low clouds moving along in the trade wind flow, with the higher clouds coming up from the southwest. Checking out this looping radar image we see showers coming in from the east-northeast, falling generally on parts of Oahu, Maui and the Big Island at the time of this writing.
Sunset Commentary: We have our trade winds blowing, which will carry on into Friday, the first full day of the new autumn season. As we move into the weekend however, an early season cold front will move out of the middle latitudes down towards Hawaii. As this front gets closer Saturday, its approach will nudge our trade wind producing high pressure ridge down close to the islands. This in turn will cause our trade wind speeds to falter, being replaced with lighter sea breezes during the afternoon hours, and offshore flowing land breezes at night. Air temperatures will feel warmer during the days this weekend, and somewhat cooler than normal during the early morning hours, as this convective weather pattern settles over us.
This cold front will bring a possible increase in showers to Kauai later in the day Sunday. This frontal boundary will keep Kauai a bit showery at times into Tuesday, although the rest of the state will likely miss this moisture. The other islands will see afternoon showers, associated with the light winds…once the trade winds slack off Saturday onwards. The computer forecast models then show the trade winds returning around the middle of next week, blowing in the light to moderately strong range. As this happens, we'll see the return of passing showers along our windward sides, on all the islands through the last part of the week…into next weekend.
Today was the transition day between summer and autumn 2011. Friday will be our first full day of autumn here in the islands. There won't be any leaves turning yellow I'm afraid, although our weather will be lovely nonetheless. We've had some good surf breaking along our north shores, which is a sign of the deep autumn season ahead. Then, as mentioned above, we have that weak cold front reaching Kauai later this weekend, another faint sign of the seasons changing. As I was mentioning recently, summer is a long ways from being done with our islands however, as we remain safe from cold air intrusions and such…being sheltered down here in the tropical latitudes of our planet Earth.
Here in Kihei, Maui at around 530pm HST Thursday evening, skies were partly cloudy, with a mix of lower and high level clouds. These cirrus clouds will provide yet another great sunset this evening, in terms of color. I'm heading home now, and will catch up with you again early Friday morning. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: The loss of Arctic sea ice is predicted to open up the Northwest Passage (the vast northern sea lanes above Canada presently choked off by ice), shortening shipping routes and facilitating the exchange of marine organisms between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Skeletons, DNA samples and harpoon heads have all suggested that bowhead populations living on each side of the continent did meet and mingle in the past.
Previous satellite tracking has demonstrated that bowhead whales from West Greenland and Alaska enter the ice-infested channels of the Canadian High Arctic during summer.
In August 2010, two bowhead whales from West Greenland and Alaska entered the Northwest Passage from opposite directions and spent approximately 10 days in the same area, documenting overlap between the two populations.
The bowhead whale is a baleen whale of the right whale family. A stocky dark-colored whale without a dorsal fin, it can grow to 66 feet in length. This thick-bodied species can weigh 75 tons to 100 tons.
It lives entirely in fertile Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, unlike other whales that migrate to feed or reproduce. The new research published in the journal Biology Letters has used satellite tags to provide confirmation that these whales cross and mingle through the northwest passage region of upper Canada.
Also intriguing lies in the human societies such as the Inupiat that historically depended on such whales as part of their society and diet. The culture originated in Alaska and spread to Greenland in the last 1000 years which suggests that they followed the bowhead whale in their migratory path across the Arctic.
Interesting2: In case you hadn't heard already, September is Bear Necessities Month, a campaign run by WSPA to help raise awareness of the plight of bears and raise vital funds towards their work protecting bears around the world. Here at ARKive, we couldn't help but be captivated by the campaign, and decided it was the perfect opportunity to celebrate our beautiful bears.
Bears belong to the family Ursidae and there are eight different species living today, which occur from the frozen Arctic to the forests of South America. The biggest and perhaps the best known of all the bears, the polar bear is the largest living land carnivore, with adult males growing up to 2.6 metres in length.
A formidable predator, the polar bear shows some amazing adaptations to Arctic life and is able to detect prey that are almost a kilometre away and up to a metre under the compacted snow, using its heightened sense of smell. Although they mainly feed on seals, polar bears will sometimes tackle much larger prey including walruses.
However, not all bears have such a meaty diet. Although the giant panda is technically considered a carnivore (as a member of the order carnivora) and has been known to scavenge on meat if it finds a carcass, it generally feeds almost exclusively on a diet of bamboo.
Bamboo is a plant with such poor nutritional value that an adult giant panda must spend around 14 hours a day feeding, now that's quite some picnic! The American black bear is the most abundant bear in the world, and the species that gave rise to our most treasured of childhood toys, the teddy bear.
The species name however, is a bit of a misnomer. While most populations in the west of the American black bear's range have black fur, in the east, many populations have lighter cinnamon or yellow-brown coats. In addition, some populations found along the pacific coast have grey-blue fur, while in British Colombia, around ten percent of the population have an entirely white coat.
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