Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / November 19-20, 2008

November 19-20 2008

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

Lihue, Kauai – 78
Honolulu, Oahu – 83
Kaneohe, Oahu – 79
Kahului, Maui – 82
Hilo, Hawaii – 80
Kailua-kona – 83

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

Barking Sands, Kauai – 82F
Kaneohe, Oahu – 76 

Haleakala Crater    – 45  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 34  (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 Wednesday afternoon:

0.23 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.37 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.15 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
6.87 Puu Kukui, Maui
1.84 Waiakea Uka, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a high pressure system remaining in place far northeast of the islands through Friday. A weak trough will form and linger near Kauai Friday night into Sunday. A large high far northwest of the state will settle north of the islands late Saturday into Sunday. The high will drift slowly eastward Monday as the trough drifts westward and weakens.

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

      

 
  Thursday should be drier and quite nice
Photo Credit: Flikr.com

A high pressure system to the north-northeast will move eastward rapidly, allowing our gusty trade winds to slow down Thursday.  Winds will slow down Thursday, turning to the south and southeast later in the day into the weekend. There’s a chance, depending on just which way the winds turn, that volcanic haze could move up through the island chain again then. It appears that trade winds will return early next week, helping to clear our hazy atmosphere then.

This trade wind flow will keep showers falling along the windward sides, although should begin to ease up later Thursday. The windward sides will continue to feel quite cool, with all the showers falling. As the trade winds slow down, and are replaced by southeast winds, our weather will change. The latest computer model runs continue to show a cold front approaching from the northwest. At the same time, later Thursday into Friday, we’ll find a new upper air trough, with its cold air aloft, destabilizing our atmosphere. These two new influences will set the stage for more localized heavy rains Friday into the weekend. Windward biased showers will return as we move into early next week…with hopefully more of our famous Hawaiian sunshine returning to the leeward beaches then!

The forecast heavy rains will ride in on south to southeast winds, providing the chance of a flooding precipitation event on those facing coasts and slopes. It appears that the most rain will occur over Kauai and Oahu, the islands closest to the trough that is expected to be located to the west of Kauai…although that doesn’t mean that the other islands won’t see generous rainfall too. The most recent Hydrologic Outlook Statement, issued by the



NWS forecast office in Honolulu, continues to firmly suggest that we’ll move back into another wet weather scenario starting Friday. This would be quite a confronting bit of news on its own, which is made even more serious, given the fact that the current wet soils won’t be dried out…which makes serious flooding a possibility.  We need to closely monitor this situation over the next few days, so that we’re as prepared as possible when this next onslaught of moisture arrives in the Aloha state.

It’s early Wednesday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last paragraph. If you had a chance to read down through the paragraphs above, you will be aware of the wet weather prospect that looms up ahead. This of course holds true after a wet several days that we’ve just come through…at least in many areas in the islands. All the necessary ingredients seem destined to line up in such a way, that heavy precipitation concerns seem warranted. Here’s the latest satellite image, so you see the impressive amount of high clouds to the west of Kauai, which looms on our horizon. The radar images aren’t showing much now, but we’ll need to include that looping image at some point towards Friday…as the expected rains work their way in our direction. ~~~ I’m at home here in Kula looking out the window of my weather tower. I see lots of clouds over towards Makawao and Haiku, where showers and off and on rainbows seem planted. Elsewhere it’s partly cloudy, with those high cirrus clouds around too, which will provide a nice sunset. ~~~ I’ll be back very early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

The recovery of Amur tiger tracks in Changbaishan in north-eastern China has given conservationists hope for a species that is rarely seen in that area. A walker in the region spotted the tracks and recorded them on his mobile phone. A century ago such a sight would have been fairly common, with hundreds of Amur tigers, on the prowl. It is thought that now only about 20 remain in the area. “Tiger tracks found in this area show that the tigers are moving deeper into China from the Sino-Russian border,” said Fan Zhiyong, director of WWF-China’s Species Program. “Therefore, it is of critical importance that tiger conservation occurs in the whole Changbaishan area.” There are just over 500 Amur tigers in the wild and it is listed as critically endangered on IUCN’s red list of endangered species. The main threats to Amur tigers in north-eastern China are habitat degradation, poaching, fragmentation of tiger habitats and a small prey population to feed from. 

WWF and its partners have been focusing their efforts to save the Amur tiger on a number of fronts: helping ungulate populations such as wild boar and roe deer — which are the tiger’s main prey — to recover by helping communities find alternative livelihood options; stopping poaching by helping local authorities carry out anti-poaching activities; and increasing and connecting protected tiger habitats so tigers can safely move from one area to another. Thanks to vigorous anti-poaching and other conservation efforts on the Russian side, the tiger population there has become stable over the last decade and is beginning to increase. As such, should the feeding population in Changbaishan be restored and protected in an effectively managed tiger habitat, then those tigers across the border may come to occupy the area.

Interesting2:

A deep covering of snow has arrived for several states in the northeast USA, in the first major snowstorm of the winter. Areas to the southeast of the Great Lakes were hardest hit, as cold air from Canada and the Arctic swept southeastwards. Several inches of ‘lake effect snow’ were dumped on states including Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Lake effect snow is produced when cold Arctic air moves over relatively warm, moist expanses of lake water, picking up water vapour which is then deposited as snow to the lee of the lakes. The effect is enhanced when the cold, moisture laden air then moves across hills and mountains, often producing intense periods of snowfall over areas referred to as ‘snow belts’. Over the snow belt to the southeast of the Great Lakes, low lying areas widely received 2 to 4 inches of snow during Monday and Tuesday. In higher places such as West Leyden, New York State, 28 inches of snow had fallen by Tuesday night. The cold, wintry weather is likely to stick around until at least Friday, as forecasters are predicting another Arctic surge of cold air over the region on Thursday.

Interesting3:

Honey bees, whose numbers are falling, must be given flowery "recovery zones" in Europe‘s farmlands to aid their survival, a leading EU lawmaker said Wednesday. Bees pollinate numerous crops and scientists have expressed alarm over their mysterious and rapid decline. Experts have warned that a drop in the bee population could harm agriculture. "If we continue to neglect the global bee population, then this will have a dramatic effect on our already strained world food supplies," said Neil Parish, who chairs the European Parliament’s agriculture committee. Parish, a British conservative, said vast swathes of single crops such as wheat often made it difficult for bees to find enough nectar. But he said farmers could help bees by planting patches of bee-friendly flowers — including daisies, borage and lavender.

"We’re talking about less than one percent of the land for bee-friendly crops — in corners where farmers can’t get to with their machinery, round trees and under hedges." Genetically modified crops, climate change, pesticides and modern farming techniques have all been blamed for making bees vulnerable to parasites, viruses and other diseases. More research is needed to pin down the exact cause of the declining number of bees, the European Parliament is expected to recommend in its vote Wednesday evening. "The experts themselves are mystified," said Parish. "A failure to act now could have catastrophic consequences." The EU parliament’s vote will carry no legal weight but is intended to nudge the European Commission and EU member states to take the matter seriously.























































































 

can also spoil the milk, making it taste bitter and turn thick and sticky. Now scientists have discovered new species of bacteria that can grow at low temperatures, spoiling raw milk even when it is refrigerated. According to research published in the November issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, the microbial population of raw milk is much more complex than previously thought. "When we looked at the bacteria living in raw milk, we found that many of them had not been identified before," said Dr Malka Halpern from the University of Haifa, Israel. "We have now identified and described one of these bacteria, Chryseobacterium oranimense, which can grow at cold temperatures and secretes enzymes that have the potential to spoil milk."  New technologies are being developed to reduce the initial bacterial counts of pasteurized milk to very low levels.

Most enzymes will be denatured at the high temperatures used during pasteurisation, which means they will stop working. However, the heat-stable enzymes made by cold-tolerant bacteria will still affect the flavour quality of fluid milk and its products. Because of this, research into cold-tolerant bacteria and the spoilage enzymes they produce is vital. "Milk can be contaminated with many different bacteria from the teat of the cow, the udder, milking equipment and the milking environment," said Dr Halpern. "Milk is refrigerated after collection to limit the growth of microbes. During refrigeration, cold-tolerant, or psychrotolerant, bacteria that can grow at 7°C dominate the milk flora and play a leading role in milk spoilage. Although we have not yet determined the impact on milk quality of C. oranimense and two other novel species (C. haifense and C. bovis) that were also identified from raw milk samples, the discovery will contribute to our understanding the physiology of these organisms and of the complex environmental processes in which they are involved. There is still a lot to learn about the psychrotolerant bacterial flora of raw milk."

can also spoil the milk, making it taste bitter and turn thick and sticky. Now scientists have discovered new species of bacteria that can grow at low temperatures, spoiling raw milk even when it is refrigerated. According to research published in the November issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, the microbial population of raw milk is much more complex than previously thought. "When we looked at the bacteria living in raw milk, we found that many of them had not been identified before," said Dr Malka Halpern from the University of Haifa, Israel. "We have now identified and described one of these bacteria, Chryseobacterium oranimense, which can grow at cold temperatures and secretes enzymes that have the potential to spoil milk."  New technologies are being developed to reduce the initial bacterial counts of pasteurized milk to very low levels.

Most enzymes will be denatured at the high temperatures used during pasteurisation, which means they will stop working. However, the heat-stable enzymes made by cold-tolerant bacteria will still affect the flavour quality of fluid milk and its products. Because of this, research into cold-tolerant bacteria and the spoilage enzymes they produce is vital. "Milk can be contaminated with many different bacteria from the teat of the cow, the udder, milking equipment and the milking environment," said Dr Halpern. "Milk is refrigerated after collection to limit the growth of microbes. During refrigeration, cold-tolerant, or psychrotolerant, bacteria that can grow at 7°C dominate the milk flora and play a leading role in milk spoilage. Although we have not yet determined the impact on milk quality of C. oranimense and two other novel species (C. haifense and C. bovis) that were also identified from raw milk samples, the discovery will contribute to our understanding the physiology of these organisms and of the complex environmental processes in which they are involved. There is still a lot to learn about the psychrotolerant bacterial flora of raw milk."