January 13-14, 2010
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Wednesday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 78
Honolulu, Oahu – 82
Kaneohe, Oahu – 78
Kaunakakai, Molokai – 80
Kahului, Maui – 83
Hilo, Hawaii – 83
Kailua-kona – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level around the state – and on the highest mountains…at 5pm Wednesday evening:
Poipu, Kauai – 82F
Princeville, Kauai – 72
Haleakala Crater – 46 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 32 (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:
0.02 Poipu, Kauai
0.03 Waimanalo, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.00 Maui
0.47 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a cold front moving through the state. The winds will become locally stronger and gusty from the northwest and north. As a new high pressure follows behind the cold front veering to the northeast to ENE Friday – cooler.
Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with this 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. Finally, here’s a Looping IR satellite image, making viewable the clouds around the islands 24 hours a day. 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.
Tropical Cyclone activity in the eastern and central Pacific – Here’s the latest weather information coming out of the National Hurricane Center, covering the eastern north Pacific. You can find the latest tropical cyclone information for the central north Pacific (where Hawaii is located) by clicking on this link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Here’s a tracking map covering both the eastern and central Pacific Ocean. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here.
Aloha Paragraphs
Cool and breezy weather
The old cold front has kept some clouds and few showers near the
More impressive than the limited showers, will be the blustery and cool northwest winds that fill in, with and behind the frontal boundary. The air flow will come out of the northwest direction, which isn’t all that common for the islands. The NWS forecast office in
The high surf continues here in the islands…and will be building again into Thursday. This large northwest swell will remain active for a couple of days, gradually diminishing Friday into Saturday. Then, starting around Saturday afternoon or evening, yet another even larger NW swell will arrive. In between these large swell days, we’ll have medium sized swells breaking along our north and west facing shores. This is the time of year when we often see these frequent high surf episodes. The recent high surf warning is in effect until 6pm Thursday evening. As we move into next week, the swells will arrive less frequently, and be generally smaller in size. The more westerly direction in these last few swells, coupled with a brief out of season south swell, has brought much larger than normal waves to the south coast of
It’s Wednesday evening, as I begin writing the last section of today’s narrative. As I anticipated, our weather is going through some pretty major changes now. The showers, as noted above, won’t be the main weather story, by any means. The primary focus will concentrate on the high surf conditions, and the cool and blustery winds that are moving into the state now. Early Wednesday evening, winds were gusting to between 30-35 mph from Kauai down through Oahu and Maui, along with air temperatures that are slightly cooler than normal. Speaking of winds, the winds have been gusting up to 60 mph atop the summits on Maui and the Big Island, which will continue. ~~~ Here’s an even closer view of the Hawaiian Islands than the one in the first paragraph above, with this satellite image showing the extremely weak and diffuse looking leading edge of the cold front, or more accurately…described as thin cloud bands moving into the state from the northwest. We can see the leftover clouds, and a few showers too, from the old cold front around the Big Island…along with the cirrus and altocumulus clouds, carried along in a subtropical jet stream, higher in the atmosphere. Here’s this looping radar image so we can track any moisture that gets carried into the state, although I’m not expecting much. ~~~ I’ll be back early Thursday morning with your next new weather narrative. I hope you have a great Wednesday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: The earthquake that has hit Haiti, raising fears that thousands have been killed, is the latest in a long line of natural disasters to befall a country ill equipped to deal with such events. Hurricanes and flooding are perennial concerns for the poorest country in the western hemisphere, which has time and again been dependent on foreign aid in emergencies.
In 1963 hurricane Flora, the sixth deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, devastated the island. The US weather bureau estimated the death toll at 5,000 and the cost of damage to property and crops at between $125m and $180m. The country was struck by two disasters in 2004. In May heavy rains caused flooding that killed more than 2,000 people. Four months later mudslides and flooding caused by hurricane Jeanne, the 12th deadliest Atlantic hurricane, killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in the town of Gonaives.
Tragedy struck again in 2008 when four storms — tropical storm Fay, hurricane Gustav, hurricane Hanna and hurricane Ike — dumped heavy rains on the country. Around 1,000 people died and 800,000 were left homeless. The number of people affected by the storms was put at 800,000 — almost 10% of the population — with the damage estimated at $1bn.
The January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake occurred in the boundary region separating the Caribbean plate and the North America plate. This plate boundary is dominated by left-lateral strike slip motion and compression, and accommodates about 20 mm/y slip, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward with respect to the North America plate. Haiti occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, one of the Greater Antilles islands, situated between Puerto Rico and Cuba.
At the longitude of the January 12 earthquake, motion between the Caribbean and North American plates is partitioned between two major east-west trending, strike-slip fault systems — the Septentrional fault system in northern Haiti and the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system in southern Haiti.
The location and focal mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with the event having occurred as left-lateral strike slip faulting on the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system. This fault system accommodates about 7 mm/y, nearly half the overall motion between the Caribbean plate and North America plate.
The Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system has not produced a major earthquake in recent decades. The EPGFZ is the likely source of historical large earthquakes in 1860, 1770, 1761, 1751, 1684, 1673, and 1618, though none of these has been confirmed in the field as associated with this fault.
Interesting2: The severe earthquake that struck Haiti and the Dominican Republic has inflicted large-scale damage, including on hospitals and health facilities, and large numbers of casualties are feared.
Immediate health priorities include:
• search and rescue of survivors trapped underneath rubble;
• treatment of people with major trauma injuries;
• preventing the infection of wounds;
• provision of clean water and sanitation; and
• ensuring breast-feeding is continued.
Control of communicable diseases, such as diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections, will be another major concern in coming days. WHO is working with local authorities, United Nations agencies and humanitarian partners to respond to the emergency. More specifically, WHO is supporting the Haitian government to best coordinate international health assistance to the country.
WHO is also collecting data on the health impact of the earthquake to disseminate to other humanitarian aid providers. In addition, WHO is deploying a 12-member team of health and logistics experts. The WHO experts being sent include specialists in mass casualty management, coordination of emergency health response and the management of dead bodies.
UN buildings, including the WHO premises, have suffered damage in the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, which struck on 12 January. The main force of the earthquake was felt 17 kilometers south-west of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. Haiti is a country that has already suffered from years of humanitarian crisis and natural disasters, including a series of hurricanes that battered the country in 2008.
Interesting3: Coal tar based seal coat, which is the black, shiny substance sprayed or painted on many parking lots, driveways, and playgrounds, has been linked to higher concentrations of the contaminants polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in house dust. Apartments with adjacent parking lots treated with the coal-tar based seal coat have house dust with much higher concentrations of PAHs than apartments next to other types of parking lots according to new research released today on-line by Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T).
The main purpose of using a quality sealer is that the sealer coats the asphalt surface protecting it from harmful ultra violet as well as road salts and engine oils which dissolve the asphalt and create soft spots. If untreated areas are ignored, deterioration will occur and you will end up spending much more money trying to patch and repair the asphalt than if you properly maintain it. Coal tar is a byproduct of the coking of coal, and can contain 50 percent or more PAHs by weight.
PAHs are an environmental health issue because several are probable human carcinogens and they are toxic to fish and other aquatic life. Small particles of seal coat, which contains high concentrations of PAHs, likely are tracked indoors by residents after they walk across the parking lot. The study found that apartments adjacent to coal tar seal coated parking lots contained concentrations of PAHs in house dust with that were 25 times higher than in house dust from apartments with concrete, asphalt, or asphalt-based seal coat parking lot surfaces.
The study also found that dust directly on the coal tar seal coated parking lots had PAH concentrations that were 530 times higher than in dust on the parking lots without coal tar seal coat. "These findings represent a breakthrough in our understanding of one of the important sources of these contaminants in house dust and how these contaminants can move from outdoors to indoors.
The study provides evidence that will be potentially useful for policy makers," said Bob Joseph, Director of the USGS Texas Water Science Center. Seal coat products are commonly applied to parking lots of commercial businesses (including strip malls and shopping centers), parking lots and residential driveways. The seal coat wears off of the surface relatively rapidly, especially in areas of high traffic, and manufacturers recommend resealing every three to five years.
There are three types of pavement sealer being produced in the industry today, they are: asphalt based, coal tar and acrylic. Asphalt based sealers are made using asphalt emulsion which is asphalt cement emulsified with water using an emulsifier to homogenize and stabilize the emulsion. Asphalt cement is the binder used in asphalt pavement.
Therefore, when you use asphalt based sealer you are using the same product that was used to hold the driveway aggregate in place to begin with and you are adding back asphalt particles to the pavement which acts like a rejuvenator. Asphalt Based Driveway Sealer have no PAH’s. Acrylic sealers are the least widely used pavement sealers in existence today.
These sealers add nothing back to the asphalt pavement and while they are not carcinogenic, they are known to cause other health discomforts including dizziness, weakness, nausea, headaches, and even gastrointestinal problems. These sealers do however have a few good characteristics including their resistance to gas and oil.
Interesting4: The poster child for sustainable fish farming—the tilapia—is actually a problematic invasive species for the native fish of the islands of Fiji, according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups. Scientists suspect that tilapia introduced to the waterways of the Fiji Islands may be gobbling up the larvae and juvenile fish of several native species of goby, fish that live in both fresh and salt water and begin their lives in island streams.
The recently published paper appears in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. The authors include: Stacy Jupiter and Ingrid Qauqau of the Wildlife Conservation Society; Aaron P. Jenkins of Wetlands International-Oceania; and James Atherton of Conservation International.
"Many of the unique freshwater fishes of the Fiji Islands are being threatened by introduced tilapia and other forms of development in key water catchment basins," said Dr. Jupiter, a co-author of the study and one of the investigators examining the effects of human activities on the native fauna.
"Conserving the native fishes of the islands will require a multi-faceted collaboration that protects not only the waterways of the islands, but the ecosystems that contain them." The most surprising finding of the study centers on the tilapia, a member of the cichlid family of fishes from Africa that has become one of the most important kinds of fish for aquaculture, due in large part to its rapid rate of growth and palatability. Aside from its value as a source of protein, the tilapia is sometimes problematic to native fish species in tropical locations.
Interesting5: As many as 50 per cent of people bring their work home with them regularly, according to new research out of the University of Toronto that describes the stress associated with work-life balance and the factors that predict it. Researchers measured the extent to which work was interfering with personal time using data from a national survey of 1,800 American workers.
Sociology professor Scott Schieman (UofT) and his coauthors Melissa Milkie (University of Maryland) and PhD student Paul Glavin (UofT) asked participants questions like: "How often does your job interfere with your home or family life?"; "How often does your job interfere with your social or leisure activities?"; and "How often do you think about things going on at work when you are not working?"
Schieman says, "Nearly half of the population reports that these situations occur ‘sometimes’ or ‘frequently,’ which is particularly concerning given that the negative health impacts of an imbalance between work life and private life are well-documented."
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