December 6-7 2008
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 78
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 79
Kahului, Maui – 86
Hilo, Hawaii – 81
Kailua-kona – 82
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Saturday evening:
Kahului, Maui – 80F
Hilo, Hawaii – 75F
Haleakala Crater – 50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 37 (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 Saturday afternoon:
0.10 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.16 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.16 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.06 Kamuela Upper, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a weak ridge of high pressure moving down over the islands, with lighter south to southeast breezes through Monday.
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
A nice beach on Kauai…looking out to sea
Photo Credit: Flikr.com
Our relatively short period of trade winds is now ending, replaced by light south to southeast breezes, although with continued fair weather. A high pressure ridge is moving southward, as a weak cold front approaches Kauai. This has caused a slacking-off of our trade winds. The return of light south to southeast winds Sunday and Monday, will bring back volcanic haze to some parts of the state. This cold front will get close to Kauai
The breezes return to the south and southeast later Sunday, when we may see clouds, and a few showers arriving along our leeward sides into Monday. There will be a further increase in showers near Kauai Tuesday…as a cold front ends its trek into the tropics. The latest model runs continue to show the potential for considerably wetter weather, especially on the Kauai end of the state, starting Thursday. This will result from a storm that dips down from the northwest, into the area NW of Kauai. These Kona rains will recede to the west, as trade winds push back into the state next weekend.
It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui. Saturday was a lovely day here in the islands! There was considerable sunshine beaming down over the beaches, while some minor clouds formed over and around the mountains during the afternoon hours. I see little change taking place Sunday, and perhaps right into Monday, although with the winds coming up from the south and southeast…we may start to see the return of volcanic haze. The details are described above, but the second half of the upcoming work week will see a definite increase in rainfall by Thursday into Friday. ~~~ I have been much more social the last two days, than I normally am! Friday I went to two social functions, and today, another two. I went to the Haleakala Waldorf School Crafts Faire Saturday morning, with a friend I haven’t seen in over a year. This is an old buddy of mine, who drove us in a red Austin Mini Cooper, not one of the new ones you see around, but a very old one, although in excellent condition…with the drivers seat on the right hand side! We enjoyed walking around, and talking to some old friends who have lived on Maui for a long time. ~~~ I then went down shopping in Paia, and stopped off in Makawao for bananas. For some reason I started walking around a little, and ended up sitting down for a little outdoor concert, of sorts, with Hawaiian music, Christmas kind, and a beautiful hula dancer too. I was sort of proud of myself for being so social, and enjoyed being away from home so much during the day. I’m a cancer, astrologically, and find the home front very comfortable, and have a tendency to hunker-in during the weekends. ~~~ At any rate, I’m home now, getting ready to head down out of this weather tower, to my kitchen below. I have some nice BBQ chicken for dinner, and am hungry as can be. I hope you have a great Saturday night, until I return here Sunday morning with your next new weather narrative from paradise. This next update not be at the crack of dawn, as its Sunday, and I may allow myself to sleep in a little. Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Between 1998 and 2007, India has lost more people due to extreme weather events caused by climate change than any other country, with an average of 4,532 people killed every year, a well-known German NGO has calculated. The monetary losses were an average of $12 billion a year in terms of purchasing power parity, representing 0.62 percent of India’s GDP, added Sven Harmeling of Germanwatch here Thursday. Releasing his findings on the sidelines of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summit in this western Poland town, Harmeling said if one took into account average death, deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, average total losses and average losses as percentage of GDP, India would rank seventh among countries most affected by extreme weather events in the last decade. Germanwatch had created an index with these four factors, by which Honduras was the country worst affected in the last decade, followed by Bangladesh.
The benchmark Fourth Assessment Report brought out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 had said extreme weather events such as more frequent and more severe droughts, floods and storms were strongly correlated to climate change caused by global warming. Harmeling said 2,502 Indians had been killed by extreme weather events in 2007 alone. But other countries had suffered worse, which placed India 19th among the list of countries affected last year. Around 9,000 delegates from 186 countries and over 400 NGOs are attending the UNFCCC summit. Harmeling said that since climate change was now an ongoing reality, countries had to step up their risk management systems in every way.
Interesting2:
The Big Three were late to the hybrid party, but they’re finally getting into the swing of things with cars like the 39-mpg Ford Fusion Hybrid, a car that should make
Interesting3:
It was recently discovered that a fungus found in the
The fungus has a clear advantage over these biofuels because it produces “myco-diesel” directly from cellulose. The shortened production process means a reduction in costs and carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Because current biofuels are derived mostly from food crops that are required to be grown and harvested on farmland, they have a substantial impact on food supply and prices. The fungus, however, can be grown in factories, eliminating any such impacts. Oddly enough, this remarkable discovery was the result of serendipity. Dr. Gary Strobel, a professor at
Interesting4: Polar dinosaurs such as the 3.3-ton duckbill Edmontosaurus are thought by some paleontologists to have been champion migrators to avoid the cold, dark season. But a study now claims that most of these beasts preferred to stick closer to home despite potentially deadly winter weather. While some polar dinosaurs may have migrated, their treks were much shorter than previously thought, University of Alberta researchers Phil Bell and Eric Snively conclude from a recent review of past research on the animals and their habitat. Polar dinosaurs include hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, tyrannosaurs, troodontids, hypsilophodontids, ankylosaurs, prosauropods, sauropods, ornithomimids and oviraptorosaurs.
This idea goes against a once-popular "Happy Wanderers" theory published in 1980 by paleontologist Nicholas Hotton III, who thought that long-distance migration allowed polar dinosaurs to escape the coldest winter temperatures. Hotton and others suggested that some dinosaurs living near the North Pole followed the centrally shifting sunlight, or latitudinal "sun line" where the sun ceases to rise for part of the year, as part of their migration. That would mean the animals might travel as far as 30 degrees of latitude, or 1,980 miles (3,200 kilometers) one way, in order to survive and avoid the total darkness of a polar winter. "There are strong opinions regarding dinosaur migration, but we decided to take a different approach, looking at variables such as energy requirements," Bell said.
Interesting5: Older people tend to feel about 13 years younger than their chronological age, a new study finds. The seniors in the study, all 70 and over, also thought they looked about 10 years younger than their numerical age, with women perceiving their appearances to be closer to their actual age than men. "People generally felt quite a bit younger than they actually were, and they also showed relatively high levels of satisfaction with aging over the time period studied," said researcher Jacqui Smith, a psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. She added, "Perhaps feeling about 13 years younger is an optimal illusion in old age." The results, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Science, have implications beyond the psychological.
Past research has shown that feeling youthful is linked with better health and longer life, the researchers say. Smith and her colleagues analyzed information collected from surveys of 516 men and women age 70 and older who participated in the Berlin Aging Study. The survey tracked how seniors’ perceptions about age and their satisfaction with aging changed over a six-year period ending in 1998. (Even though the study was conducted on Berlin residents, Smith said the same results should apply to Americans. And in fact her recent research on Americans is showing similar results.) Some of the oldest participants actually felt even younger than the average delightful self-deception in the study. This could be due to the fact that individuals on the older side, say 85, experienced less overall decline with age. And that’s why they survived, while their 70-year-old counterparts perhaps didn’t have so much longer to live.
Interesting6: A slow-moving tongue of molten rock that recently broke off from the main flow of lava on the Big Island is inching its way closer to the boundary of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and, not far from there, the Pacific Ocean. The swath of lava is just west of the main flow that has for years run toward what is called the Waikupanaha ocean entry on the island’s southeast side. Jim Kauahikaua, scientist-in-charge of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said the new flow is likely to breach the national park boundary later this week. "It’s not a terribly threatening flow," he said. National Park Service officials are gearing up for the flow to cross onto federal land but are hesitant to predict when or whether it will crawl another mile to reach the ocean. "It’s a dynamic and unpredictable phenomenon," said park ranger Mardie Lane, noting the flow also could stop and crust over or turn in another direction.
On Monday, Geological Survey volcanologists walked along the perimeter of the flow with hand-held global positioning system devices to measure its location. It had moved several hundred feet in three directions since the previous measurement 10 days before. The swath measured a mile or more across. The public will not be prohibited from accessing park service land once the lava begins moving over the park boundary. But Lane stressed that to do so would be highly unwise. For one, Chain of Craters Road ends about six miles from where the lava is expected to go, she said. Hikers would then have to traverse hot, humid, shadeless and rocky terrain that contains no public services. They also might have to cope with vog – a mixture of sulfur dioxide and other volcanic gases that chemically interact with sunlight, oxygen, moisture and dust – and lava haze from molten rock striking sea water at the Waikupanaha ocean entry, she added. One park ranger is now posted three days a week at the end of Chain of Craters Road, and more could be sent if the lava crosses the park border. No lava has reached national park land since last year.
Email Glenn James: 
