Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / January 13-14, 2012

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

Lihue, Kauai –                    81  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –      81 
Kaneohe, Oahu –                79
Molokai airport –                 80
Kahului airport, Maui –        81 
Kona airport –                    80
Hilo airport, Hawaii –           83    (Highest temperature for this date was 88 – in 1970)

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

Lihue, Kauai – 78
Princeville, Kauai – 72

Haleakala Crater –  39 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea –         30 (near 13,800 feet on the Big Island)

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 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. Here's the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui…which is working only sometimes lately.

 Aloha Paragraphs

 
Lighter breezes…becoming south again Sunday –
very few showers…increasing locally Monday
  High cirrus clouds at times – Cool mornings 

As this weather map shows a near 1001 millibar low pressure system to the north, along with its associated weakening cold front running to the southwest…over the Kauai end of the island chain.  The location of this low pressure system, and a weak ridge of high pressure near the Big Island…is resulting in light or a little stronger winds from the southwest to west. As the weak cold front moves down through the state, our winds will veer around to the northwest to north into Saturday.

The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions Friday evening:

24                    Port Allen, Kauai – WNW
17                 Bellows, Oahu – N
08                 Molokai – N 
21                 Kahoolawe – SW 
25                 Kahului, Maui – SW
10                 Lanai – WSW 
21                 South Point, Big Island – SW

We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Friday evening.  Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we see the tail-end of a weak cold front having past over Oahu, moving southeast towards Maui County. We can use this looping satellite image to see the parent of this cold front to the north of the islands, in the form of a counterclockwise rotating low pressure system. At the same time we see a large area of clouds, many of which are of the high cirrus variety, moving over Kauai and quickly heading southeast from there. Checking out this looping radar image we see just a few showers over the ocean, impacting the islands locally, riding along in the quickly dissipating cold front near Oahu heading toward Maui County at the time of this writing.

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

0.05               Wainiha, Kauai
0.05               Punaluu Pump, Oahu
0.00               Molokai
0.00               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe
0.02               Puu Kukui, Maui
1.18                 Pohakuloa Keamuku, Big Island

Sunset Commentary:   The latest weather map shows a low pressure system located to the north of Hawaii. At the same time a very weak cold front, associated with this low pressure cell, was dissipating quickly as it feebly moves down through the state. The winds coming in with and behind the front will be cooler and drier from the northwest to northerly directions into Saturday, becoming lighter in strength.  The next cold front will approach the state later this weekend, veering our winds to the south and southwest again later Sunday and Monday. The trade winds will be absent through much of the upcoming week, perhaps returning around Wednesday or so.

This rapidly weakening frontal cloud band is falling apart as it crawls southeast, with showers pretty much gone now. This front will bring us drier and cooler air into the Aloha state, which will keep us shower free into Saturday.  The next cold front will be coming our way by Sunday, although it's expected to stall before arriving. Nonetheless, it will get close enough that our winds will pick up some from the south to southwest directions again. As these winds swing around through the southeast and southerly directions, they may pick up more of the volcanic haze (vog) in our direction for several days. Yet another cold front will come close to Kauai around Monday, although it too is expected to run out of steam before arriving. The south to southwest wind flow may carry tropical moisture up towards the state eventually, which would provide some shower activity into the new week.

I'll be heading down to see a new film this evening, picking up a friend along the way. This one is called Carnage, starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, and Christoph Waltz…among a few others. The synopsis: two set of parents reveal their true colors when a polite discussion of child rearing escalates into verbal warfare. The critics are giving this film a good rating, and from the trailer, it looks quite interesting. I'll let you know what I think about it in the morning.

Here in Kula, Maui at around 515pm HST, it was partly cloudy, with an air temperature of 63.5F degrees. The cold front described above is or already has fallen apart. It will however slide down through the state, bringing a very narrow band of showers with it. Oh well, now looking ahead, we may still have some hope for showers as there will be several more cold fronts approaching over the next several days. As I was mentioning above however, these fronts are expected to stall before arriving. The hope here is that the winds out ahead of these fronts, coming up from the deeper tropics, may tap into moisture, and bring showers…especially to our leeward sides. This could happen as early as later Sunday, and with any luck, may last in an off and on manner…into the first half of the new work week coming up. We could see more of that volcanic haze coming up over the islands as soon as Sunday too, lets hope it doesn't get too thick. We'll have to wait for quite some time before we find the trade winds returning, perhaps towards the middle of the new work week. ~~~ I'll be back Saturday morning with your next new weather narrative, and don't forget to put that extra blanket on the bed before retiring, as it will be cooler than usual in the morning. I hope you have a great Friday night, wherever you are spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Extra:  youtube video of very fast jets flying around!

Extra: youtube video of Motorcycle vs. Car Drift Battle 2

Interesting:  Warmer summers in the far Northern Hemisphere are disrupting weather patterns and triggering more severe winter weather in the United States and Europe, a team of scientists say, in a finding that could improve long-range weather forecasts. Blizzards and extreme cold temperatures in the winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11 caused widespread travel chaos in parts of Europe and the United States, leading some to question whether global warming was real.

Judah Cohen, lead author of a study published on Friday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, and his team found there was a clear trend of strong warming in the Arctic from July to September. Existing predictions would also expect a warming trend during winter as well.

But Cohen and his team found this was not the case for some regions, in a counter-intuitive finding that reveals more about the complexity of the world's climate system than any flaws in the science of global warming. "For the last two decades, large-scale cooling trends have existed instead across large stretches of eastern North America and northern Eurasia.

We argue that this unforeseen trend is probably not due to internal variability alone," the scientists say in the study. Using temperature, rainfall and snow and ice data, the team found that rising summer temperatures in the Arctic meant the atmosphere could hold more moisture, leading to an increase in autumn snowfall in high-latitude areas.

Analysis of data showed the average snow coverage in Eurasia had increased over the past two decades. This additional snow cover in turn has led to a change in the Arctic Oscillation, the main atmospheric pressure pattern that governs winter weather in the far Northern Hemisphere.

When the oscillation is in a negative phase, high pressure cells over the Arctic push colder air towards the mid-latitudes, triggering colder than usual temperatures and fierce snow storms. A positive phase tends to bring milder winter weather, such as the case at present in the United States and Europe.