Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday:
Lihue, Kauai – 80
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 81
Molokai airport – 80
Kahului airport, Maui – 83
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 Sunday evening:
Kailua-kona – 80
Kaneohe, Oahu – 75
Haleakala Crater – 37 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea – 37 (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
South to southwest winds, locally strong –
showers increasing locally…especially
on Kauai and Oahu – variable high clouds
Volcanic haze…Maui and the Big Island at times
As this weather map shows low pressure systems to the north-northwest through northwest, along with their associated cold fronts. The location of these low pressure systems, and a weak ridge of high pressure to the south of the state is resulting in gusty south and southwest kona winds into the new work week ahead.
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph), along with directions Sunday evening:
24 Barking Sands, Kauai – SSE
24 Bellows, Oahu – SSW
17 Molokai – SE
25 Kahoolawe – SSE
35 Kahului, Maui – SW
15 Lanai – SSE
30 Kona airport, Big Island – S
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 see variable clouds, especially of the high and middle level varieties over and around the state…especially to our west through north and east. We can use this looping satellite image to see lots of clouds heading our way from the northwest and west. Checking out this looping radar image we see what looks like increasing light to moderately heavy showers coming up from the south, some of which are impacting the islands.
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Sunday evening:
0.68 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.37 Schofield Barracks, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.02 Puu Kukui, Maui
1.50 Kealakomo, Big Island
Sunset Commentary: The latest weather map shows lots of low pressure systems located to the north and northwest of Hawaii Sunday night. At the same time, a cold front associated with one of these low pressure cells has now stalled about 400 miles to the northwest of Kauai. Our local winds, prompted by the relatively close proximity of this front, and a high pressure ridge to our south…will continue to be locally strong and gusty, coming in generally from the south through southwest into the first half of the new work week ahead. The trade winds will be absent through much of the upcoming week, becoming rather strong and gusty around Thursday or Friday into the weekend.
The cold front to our northwest will more or less park itself to our northwest for several days. This stalled frontal boundary will remain close enough however, that our kona winds will pick up tropical moisture, and move it over the state, which would provide increased shower activity into the new week…most notably along our south and west facing leeward coasts and slopes on Kauai and Oahu. There will be off and on passing showers through perhaps Wednesday, which will be beneficial to our currently dry leeward sides, some of which may become quite generous later Monday into Tuesday. As we move into the later part of the new week, the trade winds will return with a few showers…prevailing into the weekend.
This last Friday evening I went to see a new film called Carnage, starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, and Christoph Waltz. The synopsis: two sets 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 looked quite interesting. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this unusual film, absolutely! There is some foul language, although there's nothing unusual about that. It was arrestingly (that's probably not a real word) potent in character, with what I considered to be stunning acting from all four of these well known actors. I especially enjoyed the two women in this film, as they really got into their parts in a way you never see at the theaters, but know full well that these traits come out behind the closed doors of peoples personal lives. I am going to give this film an A grade, as it met all my expectations and then some. It was dark comedy, and had everyone in the theater in stitches laughing much of the way through the entire film…that is once they hit their stride in relating with each other!
Here in Kula, Maui at around 515pm HST, it was dry with high and middle level clouds, and an air temperature of 69.6F degrees. As mentioned above, the cold front to our northwest will remain stationary for the next several days. This will cause our local winds to come up from the deeper tropics, which will tap into moisture, and bring showers…especially to our leeward sides on the Kauai end of the island chain. We will see more of that volcanic haze (vog) coming up over the islands from the Big Island vents too, especially on the eastern islands. We'll have to wait for the trade winds to return perhaps towards the end of the new work week, which will ventilate our locally hazy skies then. ~~~ Looking out the windows of my weather tower this evening, I see partly cloudy skies, with beautiful streaks of high cirrus clouds too. These high clouds will provide a colorful sunset, keep your eye out this evening and then again Monday morning too. This looping radar image shows those showers being carried over some parts of the island chain, on our locally strong and gusty south breezes. I'll be back again Monday morning with your next new weather narrative, I hope you have a great Sunday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
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