September 25-26 2008

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

Lihue, Kauai – 84
Honolulu, Oahu – 87
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Kahului, Maui – 87
Hilo, Hawaii – 82
Kailua-kona – 86

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 84F  
Port Allen, Kauai – 77

Haleakala Crater    – 52  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 39  (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

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

2.40 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.67 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.02 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.60 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.15 Pahoa, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems located to the northeast and northwest of Hawaii. This pressure configuration will keep trade winds blowing in the light to moderately strong category Friday. Saturday will find lighter trade winds.

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. 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://farm4.static.flickr.com/3252/2778478649_e64735f090.jpg?v=0
  Dolphins in Hawaiian waters
Photo Credit: flickr.com

 

The ever present trade winds will continue through Friday. These long lasting, early autumn trade winds will blow in the light to moderately strong range, although somewhat stronger in those typically windier areas around the state. As we move into the weekend time frame, an approaching early season cold front will help push our trade wind producing ridge down closer to the state, perhaps turning our local winds around to the southeast. If this happens, we would see lighter winds, and the chance of hazy weather overlapping some parts of the state.

An upper level trough of low pressure is still just to the north of Kauai Thursday evening. This will help to destabilize our atmosphere to some degree, making our local clouds more shower prone, especially on the Kauai end of the island chain. As clouds, carried by the trade winds, come under the influence of the trough, we’ll see some enhancement of the showers along the windward sides…with a few heavier showers falling here and there. The daytime heating could cause upcountry afternoon showers on the leeward sides in places too. There were reports of random thunderstorms over the waters between Molokai and Maui at mid-day Thursday, so we could see one or two more roaming around here and there.

Satellite imagery continues to show a well defined tropical disturbance to the south of the islands. If it were to develop, as some of the models suggest, we could see a tropical depression forming, moving in a general west direction. The models don’t show this tropical cyclone, if it were to form…moving towards Hawaii. It does however warrant watching, in case it decides to wander off in an unexpected direction. Perhaps the main influence we’ll notice from it will be the at times, thick high clouds streaming off the tops of thunderstorms in the tropics to our south and southwest.

It’s early Thursday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last paragraph of today’s tropical weather narrative from Hawaii.  As you were reading in the paragraph above, there’s something that continues to try and take shape to the south of the Hawaiian Islands now. This satellite image shows this rather impressive tropical disturbance to the south of Hawaii…along with the thick high cirrus clouds that are streaming over the southern islands now too. ~~~ Meanwhile, the models go on to show an early season cold front pushing down towards the Hawaiian Islands early next week. The latest model runs show it moving right down into the islands early next week, bringing early autumn showers with it. ~~~ Thursday got quite cloudy in many areas, totally cloudy at times. There was an unusual multi-layered canopy of clouds, which kept the day from being anything near mostly sunny! As mentioned in one of the paragraphs above, there were even a couple of thunderstorms that popped-up over the ocean between Maui and Molokai! Looking at this looping radar image, we see that most of the precipitation remains centered over and around Maui County, and western side of the Big Island. It appears that we may see somewhat unusual weather circumstances continuing through the next week, as we edge gradually deeper into the early autumn season. ~~~ I’ll be back very early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Thursday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

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The oldest ice ever found in North America shows that ancient permafrost withstood periods of warming, a new study says.  Scientists fear that modern permafrost—soil that remains frozen in the polar regions—may melt and release potentially huge reservoirs of carbon that would speed global warming, scientists say.  But the new study suggests that such a thaw could take much longer than previously believed, according to study leader Duane Froese, a geology professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.  Estimated to be at least 740,000 years old, the wedges of Canadian ice illustrate the longevity and resiliency of deeper permafrost during warmer climates of the past, they say.  The findings counter previously held theories that permafrost in Alaska and in Canada’s central Yukon Territory thawed about 120,000 years ago, during a period warmer than today.  The study appears tomorrow in the journal Science.  

Ice wedges are formed in frigid dry areas when temperatures get so cold that the ground cracks open. Water runoff from spring thaws fills the vertical cracks in the earth and then freezes, creating a vein of ice that builds outward with each passing year.  The ancient ice wedge studied by Froese and his team was found buried under layers of volcanic ash and sediment in a mining area in Canada‘s central Yukon Territory.  When gold miners exposed the ancient ice vein, they also uncovered a layer of volcanic ash immediately covering the ice wedge, the researcher explained.  "What was unique about this situation is we had volcanic ash we could date," Froese said.  Volcanic ash can help scientists determine the age of ice that is older than the range of radiocarbon dating, which spans about 50,000 years, Froese explained. It’s a strategy often used in volcanic regions, such as New Zealand, Alaska, and Iceland, he added.





















































































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Scientists studying the Martian landscape said yes, a river ran through it — and not just one. The ancient red planet also seems to have experienced rain, they say. The rivers may have cut the deep valleys in the Martian highlands near the equator, and also left calling cards elsewhere. Three Mars spacecraft spotted signs of fan-shaped river deltas inside ancient craters which some valleys clearly flow into. "We can see layered sediments where these valleys open into impact craters," said Ernst Hauber, a geologist at the DLR (German space agency) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof.

"The shape of certain sediments is typical for deltas formed in standing water." Rivers carry sediment downstream until the currents become too weak and let the material fall to the river bottom. The flow almost drops to zero at places where rivers empty into a larger body of water, such as a lake-filled crater. Hauber and other researchers focused on possible ancient river valleys crisscrossing the Xanthe Terra highland region. They examined crater images taken by the European Mars Express, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor, and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.






















































































































































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Federal wildlife officials have asked a judge to put gray wolves in the Northern Rockies back on the endangered species list — a sharp reversal from the government’s prior contention that the animals were thriving. Attorneys for the Fish and Wildlife Service asked U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula to vacate the agency’s February finding that more than 1,400 wolves in the region no longer needed federal protection. The government’s request Monday follows a July injunction in which Molloy had blocked plans for public wolf hunts this fall in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho pending resolution of a lawsuit by environmentalists. "What we want to do is look at this more thoroughly," Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Sharon Rose said.

"We definitely have a lot of wolves out there, but we need to address some of (Molloy’s) concerns in a way that people feel comfortable with." At issue is whether a decade-long wolf restoration program has reversed the near-extermination of wolves, or if — as environmentalists claim — their long-term survival remains in doubt due to proposed hunting. "This hit everybody really cold," said John Bloomquist, an attorney for the Montana Stockgrowers Association. "All of a sudden the federal defendants are going in the other direction." The government’s request to remand, or reconsider, the issue was filed in response to an April lawsuit from a dozen environmental and animal rights groups.






























































































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An analysis of the gut contents from an exceptionally well-preserved juvenile dinosaur fossil suggests that the hadrosaur’s last meal included plenty of well-chewed leaves digested into tiny bits. The fossil, Brachylophosaurus canadensis aka "Leonardo," is the second well-substantiated case in which the gut contents of a plant-eating dinosaur have been revealed, said Justin S. Tweet, who was a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder when he studied the fossil with colleagues there including paleontologist Karen Chin. The dino, found in what geologists call the Judith River Formation, in Montana, will go on display to the public Friday at the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s "Dinosaur Mummy CSA: Cretaceous Science Investigation" exhibition.

"Our interpretation suggests that the subadult Judith River Formation brachylophosaur had a leaf-dominated diet shortly before its death," the authors write in the September issue of PALAIOS, the journal of the Society for Sedimentary Geology. Leonardo is a 77-million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur whose remains are covered with patterned fossilized skin. The specimen has given scientists a rare peek inside a dinosaur. Digital technology and X-ray scans, some of which were conducted at NASAJohnsonSpaceCenter‘s Ellington Field facility in Texas, has helped paleontologists reconstruct what Leonardo looked like in life, what it ate, its muscle mass and its limb movements. An analysis of pollen found in the specimen’s gut region revealed a variety of plants, including ferns, conifers and flowering plants. Although the pollen could have been ingested when the dinosaur drank water, the tiny leaf bits, under 5 millimeters (a quarter-inch) in length, indicate that Leonardo was a big browser of plants, Chin said.