Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Saturday:
Lihue, Kauai – 85
Honolulu airport, Oahu – 87 (record for Saturday – 92 in 1986, 1987)
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Molokai airport – 84
Kahului airport, Maui – 86
Kona airport 85
Hilo airport, Hawaii – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops…as of 5pm Saturday evening:
Barking Sands, Kauai – 86
Hilo, Hawaii – 75
Haleakala Crater – 50 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 45 (over 13,500 feet on the Big Island)
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Saturday evening:
0.98 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.16 South Fork Kaukonahua, Oahu
0.03 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.51 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.40 Kawainui Stream, Big Island
Marine Winds – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a near 1030 millibar high pressure system, to the northwest of our islands. Our local trade winds will remain active into the new week ahead.
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 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. 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 web cam on the summit of near 13,500 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 web cams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset 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. A satellite image, which shows the entire ocean area between Hawaii and the Mexican coast…can be found here. Here's a tropical cyclone tracking map for the eastern and central Pacific.
Aloha Paragraphs
Trade winds, passing windward showers
at times…high cirrus clouds
The trade winds will prevail through the rest of this weekend, becoming slightly lighter Sunday and Monday…then increasing a touch around the middle of the new week. Glancing at this weather map, we find a near 1030 millibar high pressure system, to the northwest of our islands Saturday night. This high pressure cell runs across the Pacific, from the International Dateline to our west, across the central into the eastern Pacific…to the Baja California coast of Mexico.
Our trade winds will remain active…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Saturday evening:
24 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
22 Honolulu, Oahu – NE
24 Molokai – NE
24 Kahoolawe – E
29 Kapalua, Maui – NE
20 Lanai – NE
29 Upolu Point, Big Island – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Saturday night. Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find scattered lower level clouds, which are generally out over the ocean, although stretching over the islands locally. At the same time we find an area of high cirrus clouds over the ocean to our south and southwest, also extending over the islands in places. We can use this looping satellite image to see lower level clouds being carried along in the trade wind flow. There's also a counterclockwise rotating upper level low pressure system to our northwest, producing some thunderstorms. At the same time we find a large area of high cirrus not too far to our southwest…which has finally pushed over our islands. Well down to our south and southwest there are lots of major thunderstorms brewing as well. Checking out this looping radar image we see light to moderately heavy showers being carried along in the trade wind flow, bringing moisture to the windward sides of all the islands.
Sunset Commentary: There aren’t expected to be any major changes in our Hawaiian Island weather picture. As for minor differences from day to day, they will come and go, mostly in terms of wind speeds and rainfall amounts. The computer models suggest a slight slowdown in the trade winds this weekend into Tuesday or so…and then right back up thereafter.
Rainfall will be up and down, although nothing that’s especially unusual. This precipitation will fall most often along our windward sides. As has been the case for the last several weeks, our rainfall this time of year depends greatly upon just how much available moisture is located to our east through northeast. These offshore clouds of course get carried our way on the trade winds, as is shown on this looping satellite image. This animated satellite picture also shows the very large area of high cirrus clouds being carried towards the islands from the southwest. As they arrive, we'll see sun filtering during the days, providing varying degrees of muting…along with nice sunrise and sunset colors.
Friday evening after work I went to see a new film in Kahului, called The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain…among many others. The impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950's following the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith. The critics are giving this film an impressive A-, while the viewers are much lower, handing out a rather luke warm C+. I found this to be a very interesting film, perhaps one of the most in several years. It was so different, especially considering that Brad Pitt and Sean Penn co-starred, along with lovely Jessica Chastain. Pitt and Penn both are more often in very different types of films. In actuality, the boy Jack and his brothers were the stars of the show, who held their own very well. There was hardly a smile in the film, and again it was over two hours long. There was an art aspect that was very strong, surprisingly so! I liked the artistic part very much, although it was a bit slow in places, and I questioned myself in the beginning, as to whether I would enjoy it. It turned out to be very deep, and touching too. I feel comfortable giving it a B+ grade, although not everyone would be scoring so high. It's certainly not for everyone, although I found myself strongly pulled into the emotionality of the film. It was one of those that by the end, I just sat there for several minutes and wallowed in the state of mind it let me in. Here's a trailer for this long two hour and 18 minute film.
Here in Kula, Maui, at around 530pm HST Saturday evening, skies were partly cloudy, much of which consisted of the thin high cirrus clouds. They lit up nicely this morning, making for a great opening of this first day of this weekend. I'm thinking that this evening's sunset will be very nice as well. We can keep an eye on this high icy cirrus, by looking at this looping satellite image. I just talked to my neighbor, and we've decided to hit Mama's Fish House in Kuau again this evening. He's bringing his wife who lives on Oahu, and visiting our island for a few days, and the three of us will head down there. In the past when we three have gotten together, we've had lots of good conversation, so it should be fun. Mama's is a great place to go as well, as most of us know. Ok, that's all for now, and I'll catch up with you come Sunday morning, I hope you have a great Saturday night! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Water really is everywhere. Two teams of astronomers, each led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. Looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar — one of the brightest and most violent objects in the cosmos — the researchers have found a mass of water vapor that's at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the world's oceans combined, and 100,000 times more massive than the sun.
Because the quasar is so far away, its light has taken 12 billion years to reach Earth. The observations therefore reveal a time when the universe was just 1.6 billion years old. "The environment around this quasar is unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water," says Matt Bradford, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and a visiting associate at Caltech.
"It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times." Bradford leads one of two international teams of astronomers that have described their quasar findings in separate papers that have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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