November 27-28 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 79
Honolulu, Oahu – 84
Kaneohe, Oahu – 80
Kahului, Maui – 84
Hilo, Hawaii – 75
Kailua-kona – 82
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 6 a.m. Thanksgiving morning:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 75F
Kahului, Maui – 63F
Haleakala Crater – 50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 36 (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 Thanksgiving morning:
0.79 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.02 Waimanalo, Oahu
0.03 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.20 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.37 Glenwood, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure far to the northeast of the state will be moving northeast and away from the islands today. The trades will slacken and become light southerly tonight. A cold front will reach Kauai by Friday night and then will dissipate near Oahu this weekend. Winds will speed up in association with the front, but will return southerly early next week.
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
Aloha Paragraphs
Nice Thanksgiving Day in the islands!
Photo Credit: Flikr.com
Lighter trade winds will give way to southeast to southwest breezes into Friday. These gusty winds continue to be strong enough now, that a small craft wind advisory remains active across the Alenuihaha Channel between Maui and the Big Island, southward. The state will find lighter southeast to southwest winds taking the place of the trades later on Thanksgiving, ahead of a cold front scheduled to arrive on Kauai Friday night. Our winds will turn cooler from the north and northeast briefly following the frontal passage, at least near Kauai and probably Oahu. Those breezes will back around to the south Kona direction Sunday into Monday, ahead of a second cold front that will stall before arriving on Kauai.
Other than a few windward showers, our weather will remain dry for the most part through Thanksgiving…with a few minor showers expected Friday. As the cold front arrives Friday night over Kauai, we’ll find an increase in clouds and showers there. The computer models continue to suggest that the front will stall somewhere between Kauai and Oahu. A brief period of cool weather will return after the cold front on those islands…although other than some small drop precipitation across the north facing slopes, conditions will remain generally dry elsewhere. The following south breezes may bring a few showers to the leeward sides on Monday into Tuesday.
It’s early Thanksgiving morning here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last paragraph. Despite the approach of two cold fronts over the next week, our weather will remain generally quite good across the Aloha state. As I mentioning in yesterday’s narrative, the winds will be going through their changes, but rainfall won’t be much of a problem. The next chance for a more dynamic rainfall event will likely wait until next Wednesday or Thursday. ~~~ The big Day has finally arrived, the first of the big ones as we move towards Christmas and New Years. Thanksgiving is definitely an important date, as it allows family and friends to join together for a feast of food and companionship. I have many fond memories of growing up in the James Family, back in southern California. I’m sure most of us have those same family oriented thoughts of the past. I hope that each of you have something good to do today, and are able to break bread with others that you trust and enjoy being with. I’ll be going over to some friends house on the windward side, in Haiku, where I’ve been going for many years now. There will be two organic turkeys, and all the food and wine that all of us could possibly want. It’s a time to celebrate, and to rejoice our personal connections, and to be thankful for what we have. Meanwhile, the economic troubles worldwide, along with the news that keeps coming our way from the current hot spots of Mumbai, Bangkok airport, and elsewhere…are hard to ignore! ~~~ Here’s wishing you and yours the most joyful day, filled with deep friendship and love between family and all the others in our precious lives! I’ll come back a couple of times during the day, if I find myself around a computer, otherwise, I’ll be back again early Friday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. Aloha for now…Glenn. Happy Thanksgiving!
Special Note: It’s not just families that are getting together this Thanksgiving week. The three brightest objects in the night sky — Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon — will crowd around each other for an unusual group shot.
Starting Thanksgiving evening, Jupiter and Venus will begin moving closer so that by Sunday and Monday, they will appear 2 degrees apart, which is about a finger width held out at arm’s length, said Alan MacRobert, senior editor at Sky and Telescope magazine. Then on Monday night, they will be joined by a crescent moon right next to them, he said.
Look in the southwestern sky around twilight — no telescope or binoculars needed. The show will even be visible in cities if it’s a clear night.
"It’ll be a head-turner," MacRobert said. "This certainly is an unusual coincidence for the crescent moon to be right there in the days when they are going to be closest together."
The moon is the brightest, closest and smallest of the three and is 252,000 miles away. Venus, the second brightest, closest and smallest, is 94 million miles away. And big Jupiter is 540 million miles away.
The three celestial objects come together from time to time, but often they are too close to the sun or unite at a time when they aren’t so visible. The next time the three will be as close and visible as this week will be Nov. 18, 2052, according to Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.
But if you are willing to settle for two out of three — Venus and the crescent moon only — it will happen again on New Year’s Eve, MacRobert said.
Interesting:
Despite plummeting gas prices and unusual last-minute holiday deals on airplane tickets, more people are expected to stick close to home this Thanksgiving. In fact, the Automobile Association of America says the 41 million Americans expected to take trips at least 50 miles for Thanksgiving is about 600,000 less than traveled last Thanksgiving. The reason, as a surly economist might say? It’s the economy, stupid. "The economy is in such bad shape. They’re still really hesitant to take that trip," said Beth Mosher, spokeswoman for AAA Chicago. In comparison, over the July 4 weekend when gas prices were far higher than the same weekend the previous year, the number of travelers dropped just 2.3 percent, she said. At that time, the economic news wasn’t as dire as it is now.
Interesting2:
Ever wonder how hundreds of ants are able to go up and down a narrow twig without bumping into each other? A team of German scientists want to find out how ants avoid collisions so that they can apply the same principles to cars on the motorways. The scientists built an ingenious super "ant farm" complete with roads and bridges and a veritable city of ants. Then they observed the traffic patterns of the ants and fed their findings in to a computer. The Dresden Institute of Technology collective intelligence expert Dirk Helbing and his team set up an ant highway with two routes of different widths from the nest to some sugar syrup, according to their findings, published in New Scientist. Unsurprisingly, the narrower route soon became congested.
But to the amazement of the scientists, they found that just before the shortest route became completely clogged, outgoing ants diverted incoming ants to another route and traffic jams along the sugar syrup meal corridor never formed. The German researchers then applied what they learned by studying the insects and created a computer model of more complex networks of routes of varying lengths. They discovered that ants continued to do the same thing, redirecting incoming ants to less congested corridors and even if the incoming ants were pushed into a longer route, they still managed to get to the food quickly and efficiently. The trick now is to find out how ants pass on these "traffic reports" to each other. The scientists say that when they have unlocked that mystery, the day may not be far off when human drivers travelling in opposite directions could pass congestion information to each other in this same way.
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