Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday:
Lihue, Kauai – 86
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 90 (Record high for the date – 91 in 1980)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 84
Molokai airport – 86
Kahului airport, Maui – 88
Kona airport 86
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 84
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Sunday evening:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 86
Hilo, Hawaii – 79
Haleakala Crater – 48 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 39 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Sunday afternoon:
0.24 Kilohana, Kauai
0.03 Nuuanu Upper, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.07 Kahakuloa, Maui
0.91 Honaunau, 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. The Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui just came back online, after being on the blink for several weeks.
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
Strengthening trade winds, high cirrus clouds…
rising surf south and west facing shores Monday
Our trade winds will be strengthening. Glancing at this weather map, it shows high pressure systems to the northwest through northeast of the islands. Our local winds will become stronger Monday and Tuesday. Small craft wind advisories will begin over those windiest coasts and channels in Maui County and the Big Island early Monday morning. These stronger trade winds will last through Thursday, with a gradual weakening Friday into the weekend.
Trade winds continue…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Sunday evening:
15 Princeville, Kauai – ESE
33 Waianae, Oahu – NE
30 Molokai – NE
32 Kahoolawe – SE
32 Kapalua, Maui – NE
13 Lanai – SW
25 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 Sunday evening. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find scattered low clouds generally offshore of the islands. At the same time we see high cirrus clouds spreading over the islands in some areas from the south. We can use this looping satellite image to see just a few low clouds moving along in the trade wind flow. There are those high level clouds coming our way from the south too. Checking out this looping radar image we see just a few showers over the ocean, moving along in the northeast breezes.
Sunset Commentary: We'll find stronger trade winds Monday through Thursday. As the trade winds increase, small craft wind advisory flags will begin over those windiest coasts and channels…around Maui County and the Big Island. The forecast models are now showing these trade winds slowing down Friday into next weekend. Meanwhile, we'll find a few windward biased showers, although nothing much through Monday…with perhaps somewhat more Tuesday onwards. The leeward sides will remain generally dry through the first couple of days of the new week. We may see a few showers being carried over into those leeward sides eventually.
The surf will begin to rise early Monday along our leeward beaches, and continue for several days. This larger than normal south swell was generated last weekend down near New Zealand. It will have taken about a week to travel that 3500+ miles from the southern hemisphere to our shores. It's expected to be large enough to trigger a high surf advisory by Tuesday into Wednesday. These larger than normal autumn waves will demand caution along those south and west shores locally. This surf will become gradually smaller thereafter.
~~~ This past Friday evening, rather than going to the movies as I usually do, some friends invited me to join them over on the north shore. There was a social function at the Spreckelsville Country Club, with live jazz, food and drinks. This turned out to be a fun occasion, sitting out under the stars listening to music, eating good food, with a glass of red wine. I hung out with my neighbor and another friend of ours for the most part. At one point one of us wandered off, and so the other two of us took off to find him. This lady whose name is Joy, and I found him down near the beach, and then things took an interesting turn. We all just sort of spontaneously started taking our clothes off in the dark, and ended up going in the ocean! It felt rather chilly at first, but then when we finally dunked under the water, it got a little warmer. We hung out there in the dark, in this small lagoon called Baby Beach, which I've often gone too during the day, but never at night. At any rate, none of us were through having fun after we got out of the ocean, so we drove up to Kula, where we all live. We ended up at Joy's home, drinking bottled fizzy water, listening to some good music, and sitting around talking until around midnight. My neighbor Jeff and I drove up the mountain to our houses, and looking back now, it was a lot of fun!
~~~ These same friends invited me to go to see this new film Moneyball last evening, which I've been looking forward to seeing. This film was called Moneyball, stars Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, among many others. Synopsis: Oakland A's manager, Billy Beane, changes baseball with a radically different approach to hiring players. This film is getting very good reviews, averaging B+, which was encouraging. As it turned out, the film was every bit as good as expected, and brought a B+ grade out of me too. My friends gave it an A and an A- rating, and were slightly more impressed than I was. It brought back lots of memories, as I grew up loving baseball, and played as often as possible with anyone who would get out there with me. My brother Steve in particular, was always there to grab a glove and a tennis ball, and we'd pitch and catch together in the driveway of our parents house. Even to this day, whenever we get together, we're tossing the ball to each other several times a day! Here's the trailer for Moneyball, in case you're interested.
~~~ Sunday was a great day, with lots of sunshine, and very few showers anywhere. I anticipate that this generally dry weather will continue on into Monday, along with the strengthening trade winds, and the rising surf along our leeward shores.~~~ I just made a great organic soup, starting off with a roasted red pepper mix. I cut up and added red onion, mushrooms, bok choy, garlic, brussel sprouts, carrots, okra, zucchini, celery, cherry tomatoes out of the garden, and a can of great northern beans. I'll heat this soup up each evening Monday through Thursday, and have it with avocado from our local trees, crackers, and organic colby cheese slices.
~~~ Here in Kula, Maui at around 530pm HST Sunday evening, skies were partly cloudy, with an air temperature of 71.1F degrees. There are high cirrus clouds overhead, which should provide another colorful sunset this evening. I'll be back early Monday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Sunday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: With climate change, the world is generally getting warmer —- but not in a slow and straight line. Instead, many models show that weather is simply becoming more unpredictable and possibly more volatile, with more severe storms, more severe droughts and more peaks in all kinds of weather extremes. All of that volatility raises its own fears. With more extreme weather events, are we getting set up for a rise in related injuries and deaths?
A new study offers some comforting news. Researchers from the Reason Foundation, a public policy think tank, took a decade-by-decade look at the number of deaths caused worldwide by extreme weather events from 1900 to 2010. Over time, the study found, weather has been growing increasingly extreme.
In the last decade, there were 350 reported severe weather events each year, compared with just 2.5 per year in the 1920s and close to 46 per year in the 1960s. When it comes to death by weather, the worst decade was from 1920 to 1929, when environmental conditions killed 241 out of every million people.
Since then, the rate has steadily dropped by 98 percent. In the 1960s, 50 out of every million people around the world died because of floods, fires, storms, extreme heat or cold, and related causes. By the 2000s, the rate was down to about five out of a million.
During the study period, the researchers also found that droughts were responsible for close to 60 percent of extreme weather deaths, while floods caused almost 35 percent. Deaths from both causes have dropped precipitously in recent decades. Even hurricanes, tornadoes and other storms, which claimed 7 percent of extreme weather deaths from 1900 to 2008, kill 55 percent fewer people now than they did in the '70s.
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