Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / October 7-8, 2008

October 7-8 2008

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

Lihue, Kauai – 85
Honolulu, Oahu – 88
Kaneohe, Oahu – 84
Kahului, Maui – 88
Hilo, Hawaii – 85
Kailua-kona – 85

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning:

Kaneohe, Oahu – 77F  
Hilo, Hawaii – 67

Haleakala Crater    – 50  (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 Tuesday morning:

0.73 Mount Waialeale Kauai
0.20 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.05 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.32 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.20 Keahole airport, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a high pressure ridge sagging southward towards the islands. The location and strength of this high pressure ridge will keep light to near moderately strong trade winds blowing across our islands Tuesday. Lighter trade winds, which may become ESE will prevail Wednesday.

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

  Two voyaging canoes in Kealakekua Bay…Big Island
Photo Credit: flickr.com

 

Our local trade winds will hang in there Tuesday, then get softer on Wednesday. We’ll find light to moderately strong trade winds blowing across our tropical latitudes Tuesday. The winds will gradually turn locally from the trade wind direction to the ESE Wednesday…then back around to the trade direction again later Thursday into the weekend. Wind speeds will be lightest Wednesday, then pick up thereafter.

Most of the generally light showers will fall along the windward sides Tuesday, then occur along the leeward slopes Wednesday.  The leeward sides will continue to be dry and sunny to partly cloudy during the day today, then with some minor afternoon increase Wednesday.  As the winds come back around to the easterly direction Thursday and Friday, into the weekend…the bias for showers will come back around to the windward sides then.

Tropical cyclone Norbet remains a hurricane in the eastern Pacific. Norbet is a solid hurricane, with winds that will approach 100 mph in gusts in a couple of days. This tropical system will move over the southern part of Baja, California, north of the population centers at the southern tip of the Peninsula. Here’s a tracking map showing this tropical system, as well as a satellite image of strengthening Norbet.

It’s Tuesday morning here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrative from Hawaii.  Tuesday will be another nice day here in the islands. The trade winds will remain perky, blowing in the light to moderately strong realms. This easterly trade wind flow will gradually become lighter, and may swing around to the ESE on Wednesday. This lapse will be short lived however, as the computer forecast models show the winds coming right back around to the trade wind direction later Thursday. The wind speeds will pick up again as well by Friday, coming back into the light to moderately strong realms into the weekend. It appears the increase in windward biased showers for Friday into the weekend may have been toned back by the models now. ~~~ This morning here on Maui, I saw a great sunrise display of colors, as high clouds came moving up from the Big Island direction. Here’s a looping satellite image, so you can see this area of high cirrus coming up from the south yourself. ~~~ Again, I see no major shifts in our weather through the rest of this week, other than the lighter winds, and more clouds forming over and around the mountains Wednesday afternoon…with a few added showers as well. ~~~ I’ll be back later today with more of those interesting new stories, along with added weather details later in the day as well. I hope you have a great Tuesday wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

A quarter of the world’s mammals are threatened with extinction, an international survey showed on Monday, and the destruction of habitats and hunting are the major causes. The report, the most comprehensive to date by 1,700 researchers, showed populations of half of all 5,487 species of mammals were in decline. Mammals range in size from blue whales to Thailand‘s insect-sized bumblebee bat. "Mammals are declining faster than we thought — one in four species is threatened with extinction worldwide," Jan Schipper, who led the team, told Reuters of the report issued in Barcelona as part of a "Red List" of threatened species. He said threats were worst for land mammals in Asia, where creatures such as orang utans are suffering from deforestation.

Almost 80 percent of primates in the region were under threat. Of the 4,651 mammals for which scientists have data, 1,139 species were under threat of extinction. Schipper said the data was far broader than the previous review of mammals in 1996. Threats to species including the Tasmanian Devil, an Australian marsupial, the Caspian seal or the fishing cat, found in Asia, were among those to have worsened. At least 76 mammals have gone extinct since 1500. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions," said Julia Marton-Lefevre, director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles the Red List and is meeting in Spain.

Interesting2:

With a view to mitigate the ongoing climate change Prince Charles of UK appealed the Indian farmers to join the global organic club. Delivering the Albert Howard lecture to the Indian audience through video-conferencing, he said that worldwide organic farming has proved to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the extent of 35%, both directly and indirectly. Not only the emission from farmers’ field would be reduced, the energy used in production of chemical fertilisers and pesticides would also be saved to a considerable extent, he said. Energy would also be conserved if excessive farm mechanisation is replaced by improved local sustainable technologies. Albert Howard lecture was orgainsed by Navdanya on October 2, which is celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti here in Delhi. The lecture series are organised annually in remembrance of Albert Howard who was sent to India as the imperial economic botanist to improve Indian agriculture.

However, in the course of his stay in India, he was impressed by the traditional organic farming and tried to convince the industrial world about the benefits of organic agriculture. Prince Charles negated the myth that turning back to organic farming would result in lowering production and productivity. He said that worldwide experiences have shown that it has lead to increased production and productivity. The ecological gains were enormous with lesser use of water, increased soil fertility, environment free from chemical contamination and disease-free health for farmers, he said. He said that organic farming was in the interests of smallholders. He was disappointed with the unfortunate fact that chemical agriculture which was about 100-year old has come to be known as “conventional agriculture”, while the fact remains that it was industrial agriculture. He also criticised the genetically modified (GM) crops as not capable of resolving the food security issue. “There are reports of GM crops causing health and environmental hazards. We want the world to be GM-free,” he said.

Interesting3:

US researchers have found a way to make efficient silicon-based solar cells that are flexible enough to be rolled around a pencil and transparent enough to be used to tint windows on buildings or cars. The finding, reported on Sunday in the journal Nature Materials, offers a new way to process conventional silicon by slicing the brittle wafers into ultrathin bits and carefully transferring them onto a flexible surface. "We can make it thin enough that we can put it on plastic to make a roll-able system. You can make it gray in the form of a film that could be added to architectural glass," said John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research. "It opens up spaces on the fronts of buildings as opportunities for solar energy," Rogers said in a telephone interview.  Solar cells, which convert solar energy into electricity, are in high demand because of higher oil prices and concerns over climate change.

Many companies, including Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp Corp and Germany‘s Q-Cells are making thin-film solar cells, but they typically are less efficient at converting solar energy into electricity than conventional cells. Rogers said his technology uses conventional single crystal silicon. "It’s robust. It’s highly efficient. But in its current form, it’s rigid and fragile," he said. Rogers‘ team uses a special etching method that slices chips off the surface of a bulk silicon wafer. The sliced chips are 10 to 100 times thinner than the wafer, and the size can be adapted to the application. Once sliced, a device picks up the bits of silicon chips "like a rubber stamp" and transfers them to a new surface material, Rogers said. "These silicon solar cells become like a solid ink pad for that rubber stamp. The surface of the wafers after we’ve done this slicing become almost like an inking pad," he said. "We just print them down onto a target surface." The final step is to electrically connect these cells to get power out of them, he said.

Interesting4: 

Ground-level ozone pollution is contributing to hundreds of deaths a year in the UK – and climate change could help make the situation worse, a report from the Royal Society warned today. The study said that background ozone levels had been growing by 6 per cent a decade since the 1980s, and were now at a level where they were having an impact on health and the environment. The Royal Society publication warned ozone was a significant greenhouse gas, damaged natural ecosystems and reduced the yields and quality of crops such as wheat and rice. According to the Royal Society, 1,582 deaths in the UK in 2003 were attributed to ozone’s effects on people’s respiratory systems, while across Europe some 21,400 deaths a year are caused by the gas. The Ground Level Ozone in the 21st Century report said the UK figure looked set to increase by at least 50 per cent by 2020 as a result of growing emissions and climate change. Policies in the EU, the US and Japan have successfully reduced peak regional concentrations of the pollutant, which is formed by reactions between other gases – including greenhouse gases methane and nitrogen oxides – in the presence of sunlight.

Interesting5:

Armageddon is approaching for frogs throughout the world, warns internationally renowned primatologist Jane Goodall. The 74-year-old conservationist visited Adelaide Zoo yesterday to discuss the potential mass extinction of frogs and how an international breeding program, dubbed the Amphibian Ark, might be the only hope for hundreds of species. Frogs are "the canary in the coalmine", Dr Goodall told The Australian yesterday. "When you see frogs disappear at this rate, then you realise there’s something very wrong with the ecosystem where they live." Of about 6000 amphibian species worldwide, it is estimated close to 2000 are now threatened with extinction. Dr Goodall, who spends at least 300 days a year travelling to promote environmental issues, blames climate change, pollution and a disease spreading throughout the world for the decline in frog populations.

"It’s armageddon for frogs," she said. Dr Goodall is best known as aprimatologist and for establishing the Jane Goodall Institute in 1971. The institute aims to protect the habitats of chimpanzees and other animals. She said frogs were particularly vulnerable to shrinking water supplies caused by climate change and poor agricultural practices, as well as pollution run-off. The Amphibian Ark project is being established as an insurance policy against mass extinction in several countries. Zoos, botanic gardens and aquariums are now taking different frog species into specially designed biosecure shipping containers to ensure they can breed safely. Adelaide and Monarto Zoo chief executive Chris West, who moved to Australia two years ago after heading the London Zoo, is preparing a biosecure facility "just in case" a fungus that is killing frogs around the world spreads to South Australia. The zoo is helping to finance a biosecure facility in Central America. "We’re working on the battlefront — right around the world there are species that are going extinct," Dr West said. "It’s the biggest extinction crisis since the dinosaurs."

Interesting6:

An asteroid measuring several feet in diameter is expected to enter the atmosphere over northern Sudan before dawn Tuesday, setting off a potentially brilliant natural fireworks display. It is unlikely any sizable fragments will survive the fiery passage through Earth’s atmosphere. The event is expected to occur at 5:46 a.m. local time (10:46 p.m. EDT Monday). "We estimate objects this size enter Earth’s atmosphere once every few months," said Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The unique aspect of this event is that it is the first time we have observed an impacting object during its final approach." The small space rock, designated 2008 TC3, will be traveling on an eastward trajectory that will carry it toward the Red Sea.

"Observers in the region could be in for quite a show," Yeomans said. "When the object enters the atmosphere, it could become an extremely bright fireball."  The small space rock first was observed by the MountLemmon telescope of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey early Monday and reported to the Minor Planet Center for initial orbit determination. The Minor Planet Center alerted NASA and JPL of the impact potential. NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth. The Near Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," plots the orbits of these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.