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 Tuesday afternoon: 

Lihue, Kauai – 85
Honolulu, Oahu – 85
Kaneohe, Oahu – 84
Kahului, Maui – 90
Hilo, Hawaii – 84
Kailua-kona – 85

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

Honolulu, Oahu – 86F  
Molokai airport – 79

Haleakala Crater    – 57  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 45  (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 afternoon:

0.74 Mount Waialeale Kauai
0.11 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.18 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 winds blowing across our islands Wednesday into Thursday. Lighter ESE or SE winds will prevail into Thursday.

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

  Black lava and red crab…on the Kona coast
Photo Credit: flickr.com

 

The trade winds continue to blow here in the islands, although will become lighter on Wednesday into Thursday. A high pressure ridge, now to our north, will be gradually moving southward towards the islands. Our winds will begin to ease up in strength, and may veer around to the ESE or even SE Wednesday. Our regular trade winds will fill back in late Thursday into the upcoming weekend.

We’ll see a few showers, focused along the windward sides today, shifting to the upslope leeward areas perhaps later Wednesday. There will be some high clouds over Maui and the Big Island. As the winds get lighter Wednesday, we should see an increase in afternoon clouds through Thursday afternoon, although the air mass remains quite dry…so that there shouldn’t be any big increase in showers. The bias for showers will shift back over to the windward sides Friday, at which point we may see some added showers arriving.

Tropical cyclone Norbert has strengthened into a dangerous category 2 hurricane in the eastern Pacific. Norbet will be taking aim on the southern part of the Baja Peninsula, along the west coast, bringing hurricane force winds to that area early this weekend. Here’s a tracking map showing this tropical system in the eastern Pacific, as well as a satellite image of Norbert.

It’s Tuesday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrative from Hawaii.  Tuesday turned out just as expected, with lots of morning sunshine. As the day wore on, high and middle level clouds increased over Maui and the Big Island…along with some volcanic haze riding up from the Big Island vents. Showers were few and far between, with those occasional showers both light and sporadic. Wednesday should see just about a repeat performance, although there may be a bit more haze around, as well as some minor increase in those afternoon leeward biased showers. Friday, at least according to schedule, should see increasing trade winds, along with some minor increase in arriving showers along the windward sides as well. This fresh trade wind weather pattern will carry forth into the weekend across the state of Hawaii. ~~~ Tuesday afternoon it tried to shower a little here in Kula, but with just a few drops here and there at best. I would imagine that the afternoon clouds will dissipate soon after sunset, making way for a mostly clear to partly cloudy Wednesday morning. I trust that you will have a good night, and awake to a good morning coming. I watched the presidential debate online, and found myself thinking that Barack Obama was the winner, if for no other reason, than that he was calm and didn’t attack Mr. McCain nearly as much as he was put upon, by the near constant onslaught of negative criticism by candidate McCain. ~~~ I’ll be back with your next new weather narrative early Wednesday morning. I hope you have a good Tuesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

Environmental campaigners have attacked Starbucks after the discovery that millions of litres of water are wasted in its coffee shops every day, contradicting its much-boasted green credentials. An investigation by the Sun revealed that over 23.4m litres of water are poured down the drains of 10,000 outlets worldwide due to a policy of keeping a tap running non-stop. It is enough daily water for the entire 2 million population of Namibia in Africa, which has severe droughts, or to fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes. A single Starbucks tap left running for just over three minutes wastes the amount of water one African needs to survive for a day in drought conditions. Each Starbucks has a cold tap behind the counter that runs into a sink known as a "dipper well" – used to wash utensils. Under the company’s health and safety rules, staff are banned from turning the water off because management claim that a constant flow of water prevents germs breeding in taps.

Water companies joined green activists in criticising the firm for harming the environment and wasting a vital natural resource. Experts said leaving taps running for hygiene reasons was "nonsense". Water shortage is one of the world’s biggest problems. Australia is in the grip of a seven-year drought – the worst in a century. In the UK, Starbucks has 698 branches, each open for 13 hours a day. Even a slow tap flows three litres of water a minute, meaning Starbucks in the UK is wasting an estimated 1.63m litres a day – enough to supply Matlock village in Derbyshire. The running water policy was revealed after a Starbucks executive wrote back to a couple who complained about the tap at their local branch. Lisa Woolfe, 39, of Cuffley, Hertfordshire, said: "I noticed a small sink behind the counter had its tap running. The assistant said the store was told to keep it running as it cleaned the pipes. "I could not believe it but when we contacted head office, they confirmed the taps were left on and the water was not recycled. "It is an absolutely astonishing waste of water, especially for a company which prides itself on its green credentials."

Interesting2:

The economic meltdown could be good news for the area of clean energy investing, according to Steven Fraser, a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the recently published "Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace." Fraser believes that backlash to the recent economic crisis will result in a new era of enlightened regulation and investment akin to Roosevelt’s New Deal, which helped America climb out of the Great Depression. Fraser offered these opinions in a recent interview on WHYY’s Fresh Air program. In the interview, Fraser said he felt "very confident" that "real anger at Wall Street" will result in better regulation and more oversight of commercial and investment banking. The steady deregulation of these sectors over the past 25 years has created an "orgy of speculation" and brought us to the current crisis. The future of our economy will depend on rebuilding our infrastructure and a shift to new forms of clean energy, according to Fraser.

Any overhaul of our banking and investment sectors should move capital into these areas and away from highly leveraged speculation. The growth of the financial sector as the engine of the economy over the past 25 years has corresponded with a "de-industrialization" of our economy. The result: we don’t make anything anymore. Instead, we’ve become infatuated with highly speculative forms of investment that don’t produce anything except bubbles and burst bubbles. America must re-industrialize its economy based on high technology, environmentally responsible industries. What can a government do to encourage this? Any new or revised regulations should provide incentives to move capital resources in to productive means. An example Fraser cited would be to change the asset reserve requirement that a bank must meet to receive a license to operate and insurance coverage by the federal government. A new regulation could require investment banks to invest at least 5% of their assets in clean energy projects. Or an example of a dis-incentive would be to tax gains from speculative paper transactions.

Interesting3:

The U.S. Interior Department will designate within two years protected areas of the Arctic that are considered critical habitat for polar bears and cannot be harmed by oil development as part of a legal settlement with environmental groups on Monday. The Interior Department formally listed polar bears as threatened in May, but did not create protected areas for them. Environmental groups said the threatened listing needed to be coupled with habitat designations to protect polar bears from spreading oil development or other industry impacts. "You can’t protect a species without protecting the place where it lives," said Kassie Siegel, a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the three groups who sued the Bush administration to secure the designation. "After global warming, oil development is the biggest threat to polar bears," said Siegel. Oil companies, looking for untapped resources, are turning to the ice-filled waters of the Arctic as potentially lucrative areas for development.

Environmentalists see oil development disturbing a delicate habitat for many Arctic wildlife. The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council are still suing the government to have polar bears listed as "endangered," a more critical classification than the current "threatened" listing. The groups are also seeking to force the Interior Department to mandate regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, which the environmentalists argue are the root cause of the polar bears’ problems. When it designated the bears as threatened, the Interior Department acknowledged that the rapidly warming Arctic climate has damaged polar bears’ habitat and the species’ chances to avoid extinction. The partial settlement, filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, establishes a June 30, 2010, deadline for the critical habitat designation that was considered important to the species. "We certainly intended to make a decision on critical habitat anyway," said Bruce Woods, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Alaska headquarters.

Interesting4: 

For years, while Washington slept, most of the serious work on climate change has occurred in the states, and no state has worked harder than California. The latest example of California’s originality is a new law — the nation’s first — intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by curbing urban sprawl and cutting back the time people have to spend in their automobiles. Passenger vehicles are the biggest single source of carbon dioxide in California, producing nearly one-third of the total. Meanwhile, the number of miles driven in California has increased 50 percent faster than the rate of population growth, largely because people have to drive greater distances in their daily lives.

The new law has many moving parts, but the basic sequence is straightforward. The state’s Air Resources Board will determine the level of emissions produced by cars and light trucks, including S.U.V.’s, in each of California’s 17 metropolitan planning areas. Emissions-reduction goals for 2020 and 2035 would be assigned to each area. Local governments would then devise strategies for housing development, road-building and other land uses to shorten travel distances, reduce driving and meet the new targets.

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."