December 12-13 2008
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Friday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 75
Honolulu, Oahu – 79
Kaneohe, Oahu – 83
Kahului, Maui – 87
Hilo, Hawaii – 80
Kailua-kona – 81
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Friday afternoon:
Kahului, Maui – 83F
Lihue, Kauai – 68F
Haleakala Crater – missing (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 Friday afternoon:
4.47 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
1.44 Schofield Barracks, Oahu
1.67 Molokai
2.30 Lanai
1.62 Kahoolawe
2.66 Puu Kukui, Maui
2.33 Kahuku Ranch, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a weak front west of Kauai, which will transition to a weak trough Saturday and remain near Kauai through Monday. A low may develop just west of the offshore waters Tuesday with high pressure far to the northeast.
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
The weekend is here, time to find a good spot!
Photo Credit: Flikr.com
The heavy rain producing Kona low has moved northward away from the islands, leaving a trough of low pressure on the Kauai end of the island chain. This Kona low, which brought lots of rain, some of it heavy, is fortunately leaving our area quickly. This will limit the heavy showers, although there remains a chance of some heavier precipitation, with even an isolated thunderstorm near Kauai, and perhaps Oahu. The good thing, is that the blustery south to southwest wind flow, generated by this low pressure system, has eased up…replaced by lighter south to southeast and east breezes into the weekend.
The greatest threat for substantial rainfall will occur over Kauai, and perhaps Oahu, with the other islands finding generally lighter rainfall rates. The atmosphere remains wet and somewhat unstable, or in other words…quite shower prone. The computer models want to keep a trough of low pressure just to the west of the island through the weekend, keeping the threat of showers in the forecast. Going even further, those same models are suggesting that the trough will dig in its heels through the middle of the new week! It’s a little hard to imagine, but we may find off and on showery weather holding tight through that time frame…mixed together with sunny periods at time too.
Satellite imagery shows still those heavy showers around Kauai, and to some extent Oahu as well. The latest field of showery clouds remains fixated near those two islands. Here’s a looping satellite image of this cloud field, just to the south and southwest of Kauai and Oahu…at least at the time of this writing. The satellite image shows those clouds, while here is the looping radar image, to round out the picture. The radar shows a different story from what we saw Thursday, although there remains a good chance of continued showers…some of which may prove to be locally heavy on Kauai, which may edge over towards Oahu too.
It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph. Please take a look at the paragraph below, to have some context for the full moon Friday night. ~~~ Well, Friday turned out to be quite a nice day, especially during the morning hours, at least here on Maui, and down on the Big Island. Actually, Oahu too saw a pretty decent day, just on the edge of the rain that overlapped Kauai. The island of Kauai saw clouds and showers passing overhead, which kept that island less than perfect. Oahu, which got too much rain Thursday, got to dry out some, and they certainly needed to do that. If you have/had a chance to check out the radar image in the paragraph above, you saw the close proximity of the heavy rains that were generally passing over Kauai, and through the Kauai Channel between those two islands. ~~~ The computer models want to keep a shower prone air mass over us through the weekend, into the first several days of the new week ahead. It appears that Sunday may be somewhat wetter than Saturday, with showers heading into Kauai and Oahu, and maybe slipping over to Maui in the process. Things are happening quickly now, and the truth is that its difficult to keep ahead of the curve, in terms of what will happen next…although I’ll do my best! ~~~ I’m getting ready to head over to kahului to take in a few film, called Cadillac Records (2008). It stars Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, and Beyonce Knowles, among others. The film shows the rise and fall of Chess Records, which launched the careers of Muddy Waters, Etta James and Chuck Berry. Leonard Chess scoured the South, checking out the various blues scenes and selling records from the back of his Cadillac. The trailer looks good to me, with good grades by the crities, ranging between B and B+. I’m so in the mood for a good film! ~~~ I’ll give you my thumbs up or down on this film Saturday morning, when I’ll be back with your next new weather narrative from paradise. I hope you have a great Friday night, a bright one with that full moon, wherever you happen to be spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: A full moon is set to occur closer to the Earth on Friday evening than it has done for the past 15 years. The Moon’s elliptical orbit means its distance from the Earth is not constant. It will be a little over 350,000 kilometers away as it passes over the northern hemisphere, which is about 30,000 kilometers closer than usual. If the sky is clear it will appear brighter and larger than usual, say astronomers. Friday’s full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons this year, NASA said. The Moon’s orbit is elliptical, meaning it does not follow a circular but rather an oval path. It is currently approaching the point where this oval orbit is nearest to the Earth. "It’s only every few years that a full moon happens to coincide with the part of the Moon’s orbit when its closest to the Earth," said Marek Kukula, an astronomer at the UK’s Royal Observatory. "What people will see is a full moon that’s really bright and a bit bigger than what they’re used to." It will appear largest as it rises and sets, but this is a psychological illusion, Dr Kukula said. "When it’s close to the horizon, our brain interprets it as being bigger than it actually is, this is called the moon illusion," he said. "The size may be striking when it’s near the horizon," said Robert Massey of the UK Royal Astronomical Society.
Interesting2: The world is on the brink of a massive extinction event, according to the United Nations. Rapid releases of greenhouse gas emissions are changing habitats at a rate faster than many of the world’s species can tolerate. "Indeed the world is currently facing a sixth wave of extinctions, mainly as a result of human impacts," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program in a statement. A study earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science said the current extinction period, known as the Holocene extinction event, may be the greatest event in the Earth’s history and the first due to human actions. Unlike previous events, however, extinctions are happening over the course of decades rather than centuries. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of the world’s species may go extinct by 2050. The UN warning accompanies an increasingly frequent round of sobering news about ecosystem failures. The latest global coral reef assessment estimates that 19 percent of the world’s coral reefs are dead.
Their major threats include warming sea-surface temperatures and expanding seawater acidification. Zooxanthellae, the tiny organisms that give coral reefs their vibrant colors, are emigrating from their hosts in massive numbers as oceans heat up, killing themselves and the coral they leave behind – a process known as coral bleaching. The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network Wednesday at the international climate change negotiations in Pozna?, Poland, predicts that many of the remaining reefs may disappear within the next 40 years if current emission trends continue. "If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions," said Clive Wilkinson, the network’s coordinator, in a press release. Overfishing, pollution, and invasive species continue to be risks as well, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Interesting3: Researchers have discovered that the ocean’s chemical makeup is less stable and more greatly affected by climate change than previously believed. Researchers report that during a time of climate change 13 million years ago the chemical makeup of the oceans changed dramatically. The researchers warn that the chemical composition of the ocean today could be similarly affected by climate changes now underway – with potentially far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems. "As CO2 increases and weather patterns shift, the chemical composition of our rivers will change, and this will affect the oceans," says co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology. "This will change the amount of calcium and other elements in ocean salts."
The research team, which included Caldeira, Elizabeth M. Griffith and Adina Paytan of the University of California, Santa Cruz, plus two other colleagues, studied core samples of deep oceanic sediment recovered from the Pacific Ocean Basin. By analyzing the calcium isotopes in grains of the mineral barite in different layers, they determined that between 13 and 8 million years ago the ocean’s calcium levels shifted dramatically. The shift corresponds to the growth of the Antarctic ice sheets during the same time interval. Because of the huge volume of water that became locked up in the ice cap, sea level also dropped. "The climate got colder, ice sheets expanded, sea level dropped, and the intensity, type, and extent of weathering on land changed," explains Griffith. "This caused changes in ocean circulation and in the amount and composition of what rivers delivered to the ocean," adds Paytan. "This in turn impacted the biology and chemistry of the ocean.
Interesting4: They come without warning, sneaking up on their victims during some of the happiest moments of their lives, and they are killing Oregonians at the highest rate since 2000. "Sneaker" waves rising unpredictably from the surf have claimed five lives on the Oregon Coast in the past two months. "We call them sneaker waves for a reason — they’re unpredictable and they sneak up on people," says Robert Smith, outdoor recreation safety coordinator for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, which tracks beach-related deaths. "Generally, it’s people being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Smith says. "There are several dangers existing on the Oregon Coast that people need to be aware of." Sneaker waves are sometimes called little tsunamis and they rise from the surf with zero predictability. They generally occur when two or more smaller waves fall into sync, piling atop each other to form one large wave often twice the size of others within the series of waves — called "sets."
They are a universal coastal phenomenon, occurring even during periods of little surf. But the Pacific beaches from Northern California to the Canadian border tend to generate some of the most notable of clashes with people, according to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Since Oct. 5, five people have been caught and swept to their deaths by sneaker waves on Oregon beaches, Smith says. The most recent came Nov. 29 when 22-year-old Leafil Alforque was swept away while her fiance proposed to her at Proposal Rock in Neskowin. The couple had been standing in ankle-deep water, and a 3-foot sneaker wave knocked the diminutive Alforque down before dragging her away. It’s the most sneaker-wave fatalities since 2000, when five people also were swept to their deaths. Three of this year’s deaths occurred in two separate instances at the relatively calm-looking Sunset Bay near Coos Bay. Most years, just one or two deaths are attributed to sneaker waves, Smith says. "It’s a little bit higher this year," he says. "Some years, we have a lot of people falling victim to rip currents. Some years, it’s sneaker waves. There just really isn’t a pattern to it.
Interesting5: Another major earthquake along the same fault line that sparked the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is likely in the next several decades — and it could unleash as much or more destruction, new research suggests. The tsunami, which killed an estimated 250,000 people, was sparked by a magnitude-9.2 earthquake along the Sunda fault off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. A major 8.4 temblor and aftershocks along a southern section of that fault called the Mentawi patch shook up the region last year. Now, analysis of coral growth patterns along the Mentawi patch suggests that the 2007 quake may have been just the first episode in an "earthquake supercycle," or set of large quakes that have occurred in the region roughly every 200 years for the past seven centuries. Sections of the Earth’s crust called tectonic plates are likely to rupture again under the Mentawi patch within several decades, possibly generating a magnitude-8.8 temblor, according to research published in this week’s Science.
"If previous cycles are a reliable guide, we can expect one or more very large west Sumatran earthquakes … within the next two decades," co-author Kerry Sieh, a professor at the California Institute of Technology’s Tectonics Observatory, said at a press conference, according to Reuters. Were such a quake to cause another tsunami, it could equal or exceed the damage of the 2004 disaster in the country’s Aceh province, which bore the brunt of the death then, write the authors, who are also from the University of Minnesota, the Indonesian Institute of Science and National Taiwan University. The scientists studied coral because — like growth rings on trees — the reefs record the history of the sea level where they grow. When tectonic plates push the ocean bed up, the sea level goes down, and coral can no longer grow vertically. It can, however, grow outward, so those cross sections reveal the pattern of tectonic movement.
Interesting6: Nearly 40 years after the U.S. flag was planted on the moon, a global rush to the final frontier has some pondering property rights out there. India, Japan and China are now circling the moon with their respective spacecraft – to be joined next year by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Then there’s the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million competition for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon, travel some 1,640 feet (500 meters) and transmit video, images and data back to Earth. The legal profession sees a brief in the making. Laws tend to build on precedent. Since there’s little precedent for lunar laws, some look to the sea for suggestions. That is, the use of ocean floor minerals beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. Such valuable resources are designated by some as a Common Heritage of mankind, not subject to national appropriation.
Could the Common Heritage concept work as the basis for a Moon Treaty? Virgiliu Pop is a research specialist at the Romanian Space Agency. He has for years been keeping a legal eye on the area of space property rights, and his new book, "Who Owns the Moon? – Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership" (Springer, 2008) was published this month. Pop has been delving into what has shaped the law of extraterrestrial real estate, and the norms which express this law. And in his view, the norms and rules regarding property rights in the celestial realm are rather limited, even failing to define basic concepts such as what is a celestial body.
Interesting7: Panamanian termites have the fastest draw not only in the West, but in the whole world: They can clamp their jaws down on an invader at nearly 157 mph (70 meters per second), killing their enemy with a single blow. Researchers studying the termites needed a high speed video camera running at 40,000 frames per second to capture a mandible strike in action. (Mandible is the biological word for jaw or biting mouthpart.) "Many insects move much faster than a human eye can see, so we knew that we needed high speed cameras to capture their behavior, but we weren’t expecting anything this fast," said study team member Marc Seid, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. The Panamanian termite’s chomp-down is the fastest "mandible strike" recorded. The termites have to employ such a speedy strike to defend themselves, because their small size makes it harder to generate enough force to inflict damage on a foe.
"To create a large impact force with a light object you need to reach very high velocities before impact," said study team member Jeremy Niven, also a postdoctoral researcher at STRI. Because a termite soldier faces down enemies inside a narrow tunnel and has little room to parry and little time to waste, this death blow proves to be incredibly efficient, though it works only over short distances. The force for the blow is stored by deforming the jaws, which are held pressed against one another until the strike is triggered. This strategy of storing up energy from the muscles to produce fast movements also is employed by locusts, trap-jaw ants and froghoppers. "The termites need to store energy to generate enough destructive force. They appear to store the energy in their mandibles but we still don’t know how they do this — that’s the next question," Niven said.
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