Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / November 18-19, 2012

Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday afternoon:

Lihue, Kauai –                       83  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –         82  
Molokai airport –                    83
Kahului airport, Maui –           83 
Kona airport     –                 84  
Hilo airport, Hawaii –              81

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops around the state…as of 610pm Sunday evening:   

Barking Sands, Kauai – 80
Hilo, Hawaii – 74 

Haleakala Summit –   46        (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 32        (near 13,800 feet on the Big Island)

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is 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. Here's the Haleakala Crater webcam on Maui…although this webcam is not always working correctly. 

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.

Aloha Paragraphs

 
  Trade winds continuing into the new week
High and middle level clouds thinning…
passing windward showers at times

As this weather map shows, we have a near 1025 high pressure system located to the north of the islands.  Our local winds will be trades…gradually becoming a bit lighter into the new week.

The following numbers represent the most recent top wind gusts (mph), along with directions as of Sunday evening:

25            Waimea Heights, Kauai – E
27            Kahuku, Oahu – NE
29            Molokai – NE    
38            Kahoolawe – NE
33            Kahului, Maui – NE
16            Lanai – NE
29            South 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.  Here's the latest NOAA satellite picture – the latest looping satellite image…and finally the latest looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands.

Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Sunday evening:
 
1.07               Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.17               Poamoho RG 1, Oahu
0.00               Molokai
0.00               Lanai
0.00               Kahoolawe
0.29               Puu Kukui, Maui
0.24               Glenwood, Big Island  

                                                       ~~ Hawaii evening commentary ~~ 

Our local winds will remain gusty from the trade wind direction…mellowing out as we move into the new week. We currently find a near 1025 millibar high pressure system (weather map), located to the north of the islands. We continue to have small craft wind advisory flags up, although they cover only around those windiest spots in Maui County and the Big Island. The trades should remain active through mid-week, and thereafter could become quite light for a change.

As we look at this satellite image, it shows still lots more high and middle level clouds sweeping over the island chain, at least in places…with some clearing locally. There will continue to be a few passing windward biased showers arriving at times, and as the trade winds remain active, we may see a few very light showers carried over into the leeward sides on Molokai, Oahu and Kauai at times too.  We'll find generally those occasional passing windward biased showers through mid-week. Thereafter, there remains the chance for weather changes, although the models still haven't completely made up their minds about what exactly will take place…stay tuned.

This past Friday evening I had planned to see the new film Cloud Atlas, although when I got down there, the starting time was different than I'd thought it would be. So, I saw another I'd been wanting to see, called Argo, starring Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Taylor Schilling and Scoot McNairy…among many others. The synopsis: based on true events, Argo chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis-the truth of which was unknown by the public for decades. On November 4, 1979, as the Iranian revolution reaches its boiling point, militants storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. But, in the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to slip away and find refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Knowing it is only a matter of time before the six are found out and likely killed, a CIA "exfiltration" specialist named Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) comes up with a risky plan to get them safely out of the country. A plan so incredible, it could only happen in the movies. The reviews are very positive on this film, and I recall after seeing the trailer the first time, I wanted to see it very much. My friend Bob in California told me he liked this film very much, and as it turns out, so did I. It was tense, exciting, and often darkly comic, and at the same time…very clever, taut and restrained. It was an amazing real life caper, and to say the least, a bizarre adventure. As for a grade, I'd easily give it a B+, and it deserves every bit of it. Here's the trailer.

The weather here in Hawaii will remain quite breezy, although gradually become less so over the next several days. This looping satellite image shows this extensive area of high level moisture coming up from the deeper tropics. The latest guidance shows these cirrus clouds sticking around, although they are now clearing some parts of the island chain. They will continue to filter and dim our sunshine Monday locally, as they have been doing the last few days. At the time of this writing, the bulk of this high level moisture is located over the ocean to the south of the state.

Meanwhile, as I've been pointing out over the last 3-4 days, a possible weather change is on the horizon. This shift in our weather pattern will occur after Wednesday, and may last through Friday into the first part of the weekend. It's still a bit too early to nail down exactly what will be happening during this Thanksgiving holiday period. However, lets just say that showers, or even rainy weather may overlap our island chain from the south to southwest. There have been variations in how the various computer weather models have been describing this change. So rather than trying to let you know all those individual differences, I'd like to now make a broad brush notice of a chance of precipitation at that time.

Now I know that Thanksgiving is probably a day that we'd like to keep dry, being a holiday and all. On the other hand, our islands are quite dry now, especially in our leeward areas. Thus, it would be a blessing to have some rainfall across the state, which may or may not happen. I recommend we just hold this prospect lightly now, and see what the models show over the next day or two. I'm sure that by later Monday, or by Tuesday at the latest, we'll have a better idea of what to expect. With that said, I'd like to wish you all well at this time, and let you know that I'll be back again early Monday morning with more information about this, and everything else weather-wise then too. Aloha for now…Glenn.
 

World-wide tropical cyclone activity:

Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean Sea:  There are no active tropical cyclones

Gulf of Mexico: There are no active tropical cyclones

Eastern Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones

Central Pacific Ocean:  There are no active tropical cyclones

Western Pacific Ocean:  There are no active tropical cyclones

South Pacific Ocean:   There are no active tropical cyclones

North and South Indian Oceans:  Tropical cyclone 03B is now quickly dissipating in the north Indian Ocean, located approximately 395 NM east-northeast of Chennai, India. The JTWC shows that it has 30 knot sustained winds, with gusts to near 40 knots. Here's a graphical track map for this tropical storm…along with a satellite image. – Final Warning

Interesting:  Hurricane Sandy was a monster. It changed lives and changed the actual land shapes along the coasts affected. The USGS has released a series of aerial photographs showing before-and-after images of Hurricane Sandy's impacts on the Atlantic Coast. Among the latest photo pairs to be published are images showing the extent of coastal change in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.

The photos, part of a USGS assessment of coastal change from as far south as the Outer Banks of North Carolina to as far north as Massachusetts, show that the storm caused dramatic changes to portions of shoreline extending hundreds of miles. Pre- and post-storm images of the New Jersey and New York shoreline in particular tell a story of a coastal landscape that was considerably altered by the historic storm.

Meanwhile, images from hundreds of miles south of the storm’s landfall demonstrate that the storm’s breadth caused significant coastal change as far south as the Carolinas. "Sandy taught us yet again that not all Cat-1 hurricanes are created equal: the superstorm's enormous fetch over the Atlantic produced storm surge and wave erosion of historic proportions," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "We have seized this opportunity to gather unique data on a major coastline-altering event."

As major storms approach, the USGS conducts pre-storm and post-storm flights to gather aerial images along the length of the coastline expected to experience impacts from the storm’s landfall. Identifying sites of such impacts helps scientists understand which areas are likely to undergo the most severe impacts from future storms, and improves future coastal impact forecasting.

Photo pairs from North Carolina to Massachusetts are now available online. "This storm’s impact on sandy beaches included disruption of infrastructure in the south, such as overwash of roads near Pea Island, Buxton, and Rodanthe in N.C., and some dune erosion near Duck, N.C.," said St. Petersburg-based USGS oceanographer Nathaniel Plant.

Such storm-induced changes to the coastal profile can jeopardize the resilience of impacted coastal communities in the path of subsequent storms. "Houses and infrastructure may be more vulnerable to future storms because beaches are narrower and dunes are lower," Plant said. Overwash is the flow of water and sediment over the crest of the beach that does not directly return to the water body (such as ocean, sea, bay or lake; hereafter, ocean) where it originated after water level fluctuations return to normal.

There are two kinds of overwash: overwash by runup and overwash by inundation. In the fields of coastal geology and geomorphology, 'overwash' refers to a landward flux of sediment due to overtopping of a dune system. The configuration of a coastline's physical features determine how it will respond to storm forces, and whether it will experience erosion, overwash, or inundation.

In South Bethany, Delaware, the storm appears to have eroded a low dune that had stood between the Atlantic and a row of beachfront homes. Like overwash, beach and dune erosion can compromise a coastline's natural defenses against future storms. Data collected from these surveys are also used to improve predictive models of potential impacts from future severe storms.

Before a storm makes landfall, USGS makes these predictions to help coastal communities identify areas particularly vulnerable to severe coastal change, such as beach and dune erosion, overwash, and inundation. For instance, in the days before Sandy approached the eastern seaboard, the USGS ran models forecasting that 91 percent of the Delmarva coastline would experience beach and dune erosion, while 98 percent and 93 percent of beaches and dunes in New Jersey and New York, respectively, were likely to erode. For those living in these areas, they know how dramatically these areas have changed due to Sandy.