Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 85
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 87
Kaneohe, Oahu – M
Molokai airport – 82
Kahului airport, Maui – 84
Kona airport – 83
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 82
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops around the state…as of 11pm Saturday night:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 80
Hilo, Hawaii – 72
Haleakala Summit – 41 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – M (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…although this webcam is not always working correctly.
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.
Aloha Paragraphs
Trade winds continuing well into
the future, windward showers
increasing at times Sunday,
through Tuesday…then drier
As this weather map shows, we have a moderately strong high pressure systems aligned to the northwest, north and northeast of the islands. Our local trade winds will remain moderately strong in general through the next week.
The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Saturday evening:
15 Port Allen, Kauai – WNW
30 Kuaokala, Oahu – N
23 Molokai – ESE
28 Kahoolawe – NE
22 Lipoa, Maui – ENE
35 Lanai – NE
35 PTA Keamuku, Big Island – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean. Here's the latest NOAA satellite picture – the latest looping satellite image…and finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Saturday evening:
0.11 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.13 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.16 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.21 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.25 Kealakekua, Big Island
~~ Sunset Commentary ~~
Trade winds continuing through the rest of this weekend…into the new week ahead. We find several moderately strong high pressure systems (weather map) located to the northwest through northeast of the islands Saturday evening. The trades that are being generated by this well established zone of high pressure to our north, will carry windward showers our way in an off and on manner…over the next several days. The leeward sides will remain generally dry, although a few showers could fall here and there.
Friday evening film: This time around, some of my neighbors and I went to see a new film, called Hope Springs, starring Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, and Steve Carell. The synopsis: Kay and Arnold are a devoted couple, but decades of marriage have left Kay wanting to spice things up and reconnect with her husband. When she hears of a renowned couple's specialist in the small town of Great Hope Springs, Maine, she attempts to persuade her skeptical husband, a steadfast man of routine, to get on a plane for a week of marriage therapy. Just convincing the stubborn Arnold to go on the retreat is hard enough — the real challenge for both of them comes as they shed their bedroom hang-ups and try to re-ignite the spark that caused them to fall for each other in the first place. ~~~ The reviews of this film vary from great to lousy, although upon seeing it, I come down on the side of very entertaining. I wouldn't necessarily call it one of my favorite of the year, although it was a really sweet film. There were some good belly laughs, and also a few times when I'm sure a few folks in the theater may have shed a few tears, in other words…quite a wide range. The acting was superb, and we all agreed on that, with the average grade somewhere between B and B+. It was a film well worth seeing! Here's a trailer for this what's being called a comedy.
Here in Kula, Maui at 505pm Saturday evening, it was clear to partly cloudy and windy…with an air temperature of 75.2F degrees. The trade winds will continue across our islands through the next week and more. These trade winds will blow generally in the moderately strong realms. If we look at this satellite image, we see increasing low level bands and patches of clouds upstream of our islands, to the east and northeast. The forecast continues to suggest windward biased showers continuing, and lasting through Tuesday or so. In sum: trade wind weather pattern is expected to continue, with increasing showers at times Sunday onwards for a couple of days. This isn't going to be a heavy rain period coming up by any means, it will just bring our shower activity back up closer to normal. ~~~ While I was in Paia shopping today, a friend told me about a dance down there this evening. It starts at a reasonable 8pm, so I'm tempted to take the drive back down there later. It sounds like it might be some good music, with a lot of folks in the Maui Yoga community on the dance floor. If I go, I'll let you know what I found Sunday morning, when I'll be back with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Saturday night wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
Central Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
Eastern Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean: Hurricane Gordon (8L) is active in the Atlantic, located about 390 miles west-southwest of San Miguel Island, Azores. Sustained winds were 105 mph…category 2! Here's the NHC graphical track map for hurricane Gordon.
Post-tropical cyclone Helene (9L) is active over southern Mexico, located about 85 miles west-northwest of Tampico, Mexico. Sustained winds were 30 mph…with a fast weakening expected during the remainder of its life cycle. Here's the NHC graphical track map for Helene. – Final Advisory
Finally, a new area of disturbed weather is located far to the east in the Atlantic, offshore from the western African coast…moving westward. The NHC is giving this area a high 60% chance of developing into a tropical depression during the next 48 hours.
Here's a satellite image showing hurricane Gordon in the Atlantic, now retired Helene over southern Mexico…and this tropical disturbance offshore moving westward into the central Atlantic.
Western Pacific Ocean: Newly formed tropical storm Tembin (14W) is active in the Philippine Sea…located about 280 NM northeast of Manila. Sustained winds are 35 knots, becoming a typhoon in about 72 hours. The JTWC keeps it over the ocean away from Luzon Island in the Philippines, although eventually brings it over the central part of Taiwan, south of Taipei. Here's the JTWC graphical track map.
South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
North and South Indian Oceans: There are no active tropical cyclones
Interesting: The sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured. If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would be much less than the width of a human hair. The sun rotates every 28 days, and because it doesn't have a solid surface, it should be slightly flattened.
This tiny flattening has been studied with many instruments for almost 50 years to learn about the sun's rotation, especially the rotation below its surface, which we can't see directly. Now Jeff Kuhn (one of my neighbors) and Isabelle Scholl (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa), Rock Bush (Stanford University), and Marcelo Emilio (Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa, Brazil) have used the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite to obtain what they believe is the definitive — and baffling — answer.
Because there is no atmosphere in space to distort the solar image, they were able to use HMI's exquisite image sensitivity to measure the solar shape with unprecedented accuracy. The results indicate that if the Sun were shrunk to a ball one meter in diameter, its equatorial diameter would be only 17 millionths of a meter larger than the diameter through its North-South pole, which is its rotation axis.
They also found that the solar flattening is remarkably constant over time and too small to agree with that predicted from its surface rotation. This suggests that other subsurface forces, like solar magnetism or turbulence, may be a more powerful influence than expected.
Kuhn, the team leader and first author of an article published Aug. 16 in Science Express, said, "For years we've believed our fluctuating measurements were telling us that the sun varies, but these new results say something different. While just about everything else in the sun changes along with its 11-year sunspot cycle, the shape doesn't."
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