June 9-10, 2009 

Air TemperaturesThe following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday afternoon: 

Lihue, Kauai – 83
Honolulu, Oahu – 91
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Kahului, Maui – 83

Hilo, Hawaii – 82
Kailua-kona – 84


Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Tuesday evening:

Honolulu, Oahu – 89F
Kapalua, Maui – 79

Haleakala Crater    – 59  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 45  (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation TotalsThe following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of
Tuesday afternoon:

0.05 Wailua, Kauai
0.39 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu

0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.14 West Wailuaiki, Maui

0.15 Kahua Ranch, Big Island

Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map shows a 1023 millibar high pressure system to the northeast of the islands, with a ridge extending from the southwest flank of this high…into the area north and northwest of Kauai. The trade winds will remain active, although will be lighter Wednesday into Thursday, as a surface trough, now just to the east of the Big Island…helps to tamp down the trade wind speeds.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state 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. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. 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 webcam on the summit of near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.

 

 Aloha Paragraphs

http://images.magicseaweed.com/photoLab/95535.jpg
   Nice waves breaking now…Hawaiian Style!  

 

The trade winds will continue to blow, although lighter through Wednesday into Thursday…then strengthen again Friday into the upcoming weekend.  Looking at this weather map Tuesday evening, we see a 1022 millibar high pressure system to our northeast. That same weather map shows a surface trough of low pressure to our east…which is helping to keep our trade wind softer than normal now. As the trade winds remain on the light side, there will be onshore flowing sea breezes blowing along our leeward sides. The computer models continue to show the trade winds picking up again in strength around Friday, into the weekend and beyond.

There will be a few minor showers around through Wednesday…with a slight increase in showers Wednesday night into Thursday.
The leeward beaches will remain mostly dry, with generally favorable weather conditions during this entire week. The computer forecast models continue to bring in an area of showers Wednesday night through most of Thursday. These showers will fall along the windward sides, and around the mountains. As the trade winds will be on the increase by Friday, there will continue to be some passing showers along the windward sides. 

Looking at satellite imagery, and especially the clouds upstream of the islands, we see rather distinct cloud bands, with what looks like relatively dry areas between them. Depending up on the timing of arrival of these bands, we should continue to see slight increases in windward biased showers during the nights, with drying out during the days. The main area of expected showers is located pretty much directly to the northeast of the islands. It might be easiest to see this feature using a looping IR satellite image. This minor disturbance is expected to move along in a more or less WSW direction. The southern edge of this shower area is what will bring the increased chance of showers Wednesday night into Thursday. 

It’s Tuesday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s narrative. What a lovely day Tuesday was here in the islands, one of the best days we’ve seen in quite some time! There was a general lack of cloudiness, and whatever haze that was around, was confined to the Kona coast on the Big Island for the most part. Air temperatures jetted up well into the 80F’s…with the big city of Honolulu, topping out at 91 hot degrees. 

~~~ As I’ve been mentioning recently, I will be flying to the mainland Thursday. I’ll be there saying goodbye to a very good friend in northern California, and then flying south to Long Beach…to spend some time with my Mom and Dad. I’ll be back to the islands June 24th, and will try and stay in touch as I can while away.

~~~  Looking outside now in Kula, I see hardly anything but absolutely clear blue skies. Even up here on the slopes of the Haleakala Crater, there are hardly any clouds at all. The air temperature down at the Kahului airport at around 6pm was a warm 78 degrees, while here at 3,000+ feet in Kula, it was only 5 degrees cooler than that at the same time! I’ll be back here early Wednesday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Tuesday night wherever you happen to be reading from! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting: The World Health Organization said Tuesday a spike in swine flu cases in Australia may push it to finally announce the first flu pandemic in 41 years. It also expressed concern about an unusual rise in severe illness from the disease in Canada. WHO’s flu chief Keiji Fukuda said the agency wanted to avoid "adverse effects" if it announces a global outbreak of swine flu.

Fukuda said people might panic or that governments might take inappropriate actions if WHO declares a pandemic. Some flu experts think the world already is in a pandemic and that WHO has caved in to country requests that a declaration be postponed. "On the surface of it, I think we are in phase 6," or a pandemic, said Margaret Chan, WHO’s director-general.

Chan said it was important to verify the reports that the virus is becoming established outside North America before declaring a pandemic. "The decision to make a phase 6 announcement is a heavy responsibility, a responsibility that I will take very seriously, and I need to be convinced that I have indisputable evidence," she said. Chan said she will hold a conference call with governments Wednesday in order to verify some of the reports she has received before making a formal announcement.

"Once I get indisputable evidence, I will make the announcement," she told reporters in Geneva. WHO said the virus has infected 26,563 people in 73 countries and caused 140 deaths. Most of the cases have been in North America, but Australia also has seen a sharp increase in recent days.

In most of the 73 countries, the new H1N1 virus has triggered only mild illness. But the fact that some of the deaths have occurred in otherwise healthy adults has prompted WHO to classify the outbreak as "moderate" for the time being. "Approximately half the people who have died from this H1N1 infection have been previously healthy people," Fukuda said, adding that this was "one of the observations which has given us the most concern."

Interesting2: First, in late March the bodies of about 1,200 penguins were found on a remote beach in southern Chile. Next came the sardines — millions of them — washed up dead on a nearby stretch of coastline in April, causing a stench so noxious that nearby schools were closed and the army was called in to shovel piles of rotting fish off the sand.

Then it was the turn of the rare Andean flamingos. Over the course of approximately three months, thousands of them abandoned their nests on a salt lake in the Atacama Desert in the far north of Chile. Their eggs failed to hatch, and all 2,000 chicks died in their shells.

Finally, in late May came the pelicans — nearly 60 of them, found dead on the central Chilean coast. No one knows exactly what has caused these four apparently unrelated environmental disasters in as many months. Global warming has been blamed, as has overfishing, pollution and disease.

In northern Chile, ecologists have accused mining companies of fatally altering the flamingos’ habitat by draining the area’s subterranean water. There was speculation that the penguins might have starved to death as a result of the depletion of fish stocks, although a preliminary report by a local university now suggests they were killed by a bacterial infection.

Whatever the explanations, the events have caused unease among Chileans — a sense of guilt over not doing enough to protect their country’s spectacularly rich wildlife. "Chile has very primitive legislation governing the management of its fisheries," says Alex Muñoz, executive director of Oceana, an international marine-conservation group with offices in Santiago, Chile’s capital.

"We have a big problem with overfishing. Our industrial trawlers are having a huge impact on the seabed. We should consider these problems if we want to work out what caused the death of the penguins and the sardines."

Interesting3: Giant jellyfish are taking over parts of the world’s oceans as overfishing and other human activities open windows of opportunity for them to prosper, say researchers. Jellyfish are normally kept in check by fish, which eat small jellyfish and compete for jellyfish food such as zooplankton, researchers said.

But, with overfishing, jellyfish numbers are increasing. These huge creatures can burst through fishing nets, as well as destroy local fisheries with their taste for fish eggs and larvae. Anthony Richardson of CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research and colleagues reported their findings in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution to coincide with World Oceans Day.

They say climate change could also cause jellyfish populations to grow. The team believes that for the first time, water conditions could lead to what they call a "jellyfish stable state," in which jellyfish rule the oceans. The combination of overfishing and high levels of nutrients in the water has been linked to jellyfish blooms.

Nitrogen and phosphorous in run-off cause red phytoplankton blooms, which create low-oxygen dead zones where jellyfish survive, but fish can’t, researchers said. In the photo, a diver is attaching a sensor to track a monster Echizen jellyfish, which has a body almost 5 feet across, off the coast of northern Japan.

Interesting4: Junk food is stunting the growth of young suburban crows, new research suggests. To make matters worse, and like some humans, crow parents opt to feed their young less nutritious food if it is easier to get. The findings show how evolved behaviors can become detrimental as previously natural environments turn into suburbs. For crows and other birds, suburban and urban environments provide rich, relatively predictable sources of food.

Dumpsters, trashcans, or the unattended grocery bag all make for easier scavenging than the comparatively bare countryside. But while the leftover French fries and donuts a crow would find at these sources may be fine for adults, they can have a detrimental effect on growing young crows.

Rebecca Heiss and colleagues at Binghamton University, New York, found that not only were suburban nestlings smaller than their rural brethren, their levels of blood protein were also lower. The results suggest that their diets, while adequate in terms of calories, lack nutrients that nestlings need to grow to their full potential size.

"They didn’t look like they were malnourished, just smaller," says Heiss, who along with her team spent months watching a population of nearly 40 nests. "This is a really well-watched population; we know these crows from egg to death," Heiss explains.

When the nestlings were between 23 and 31 days old, Heiss and her team climbed up to the nests, dodging the dive-bombs of protective parents, to collect the baby birds. They took a quick blood sample from each, weighed and measured them, and then returned the nestlings.

Back at the lab, tests revealed lower protein and plasma calcium levels in the suburban young compared with rural chicks. Heiss also offered a few of the nests a home-baked nutrient supplement: baby food, powdered eggs, and soaked cat food.

The concoction had more calcium and protein than typical suburban fare; a fact that was reflected in increased growth in the suburban nestlings that ate it. Surprisingly, however, the rural nestlings whose parents fed them supplement were smaller than those who ate natural diets, usually a combination of insects, seeds, and the occasional small animal.

This suggests that crow parents will choose less nutritious food if it is more readily available. "If someone throws out trash, then the crows eat the trash instead of, say, a baby rabbit," says co-author Kevin McGowan. "Urban sources of food tend to be highly predictable," says Reed Bowman of the Archbold Biological Station in Lake Placid, Florida.

According to Bowman, it makes sense that adult birds would opt for easily available, less nutritious, food for themselves, but he finds it puzzling that they would offer the junk food to their offspring. "If bad food makes nestlings worse off, why do parents do it?" he asks.

Bowman thinks that it’s an "evolutionary mistake," that crows evolved to be opportunistic feeders, which helps them in natural environments, but may be detrimental as humans continue to urbanize the rural landscape. It’s not known if the size differences observed in young crows will persist into adulthood.

It is also possible that smaller young crows may not be able to compete with more robust challengers for territory, preventing them from surviving to adulthood. More research is needed to find out how the nutrient inequalities play out over the entire life-span of the crows, say the researchers.