Hawaiian Islands Weather details & Aloha paragraphs / February 28-March 1, 2013

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

Lihue, Kauai –                       77  
Honolulu airport, Oahu –     81  
Molokai airport –                    77
Kahului airport, Maui –           80 
Kona airport, Hawaii     –        79   
Hilo airport, Hawaii –              79

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level – and on the highest mountain tops around the state…as of 530am Friday morning:

Honolulu, Oahu – 72
Barking Sands, Kauai – 65

Haleakala Summit –   39     (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea Summit – 27      (13,000+ 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 – if it's working.

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.  The 2012 hurricane season is over in the eastern and central Pacific…resuming on May 15th and June 1st 2013.

Aloha Paragraphs

 
Just a few windward showers…lots of sunshine at
most leeward beaches Friday – Strong trade winds
,
Small Craft Advisory for all marine zones of Hawaii

High Surf Advisory along north and west shores of
Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, and north shore of Maui

Wind Advisory for those windiest areas on Maui and
the Big Island

~~~535am HST Friday morning: partly cloudy, calm…
at my upcountry Kula, Maui weather tower: the
air temperature was 52.2F degrees~~~

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

27       Port Allen, Kauai – ENE
45       Kuaokala, Oahu – NE
32       Molokai – NNE
42       Kahoolawe – E
33       Kapalua, Maui – NE
37       Kawaihae, Big Island – ENE 

Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Thursday evening:
 
0.08     Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.02     Pupukea Road, Oahu
0.00     Molokai
0.00     Lanai
0.00     Kahoolawe
0.00     Maui
0.03     Saddle Quarry, Big Island

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.

                   ~~~ Hawaii Weather Commentary ~~~ 

Our trade winds will become stronger and more gusty Friday…reaching 30-50 mph in those windiest areas through Saturday. Here's a weather chart showing large high pressure systems far to the northeast and northwest of Hawaii. At the same time, we see storm and gale low pressure systems far to the northeast and northwest…with a weakening cold front to our north and northwest. Our trade wind weather pattern will prevail, with the winds continuing to be stronger than normal. Friday and Saturday will likely find the strongest winds…then somewhat lighter Sunday into next week.

Small craft wind advisory flags remain up over all coastal and channel waters…statewide. At the same time, we have a high surf advisory for most north and west shores from Kauai to Maui. Now, in response to the expected blustery trades tonight through the next several days, a wind advisory becomes active, beginning at midnight. There's a chance that we could see gale warnings being issued (by the NWS Honolulu) in those windiest channels around Maui County and the Big Island too. No doubt about it, its going to be a windy couple of days coming up. We should see some easing of all this wind in a hurry as we push into the new work week ahead.

Satellite imagery shows low clouds upwind of our windward sides, although with the atmosphere remaining stable and quite dry…limited showers are expected. The leeward sides look to remain generally clear to partly cloudy, with dry conditions prevailing. This larger satellite picture continues to show that large area of bright white, high level cloudiness, far to the east of the state. The lower level moisture to our east and northeast, being carried our way on the gusty trades, will bring just a few passing showers to our islands at times. Glancing up towards our northwest, we see a weakening cold front, although it isn't expected to come much closer. The overall trend in terms of precipitation, will continue to be limited, even along our windward sides today into Friday.

This gusty reality will continue through at least the first half of the weekend. Earlier this week it was very windy, and the last few days have only been windy. What's next? Well…it looks very likely like we're in for another very windy episode through Saturday. These strong and very strong trades are what nature is serving up these days. The strongest gust during these last couple of windiest periods, was a pretty remarkable 60+ mph gust! It won't surprise me to find 50+ mph gusts blowing through the islands, aided of course by our mountain/valley terrain. Our local winds take on added velocity when they curve up and over mountains, and around and through valleys. I'll keep close track of all this over the next few days, for sure, and keep you abreast of all the particulars. My next new weather narrative from our windy island home, will be out early Friday morning. I hope you have a great Thursday night wherever you're spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn. 

Extra: I read something yesterday that I'd like to share with you:

Experts say there are steps people can take to improve their sense of well-being.

All of these create an immediate shift in our mental state."

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:  There are no active tropical cyclones

Interesting:  By combining aquaculture with wet paddy farming in its coastal areas, Bangladesh can meet food security and climate change issues, says a new report. The approach promises more nutritious food, without causing environmental damage, and has the potential for a 'blue-green revolution' on Bangladesh’s existing crop areas extending to about 10.14 million hectares, and an additional 2.83 million hectares that remain waterlogged for about 4—6 months.

"The carrying capacities of these additional lands and waters, when fully utilized, can increase food production and economic growth," says Nesar Ahmed, author of the report published online last month (28 January) in Ocean & Coastal Management.

Ahmed, a researcher in fisheries management at the Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, told SciDev.Net that there was a "vital link between prawn and shrimp farming in coastal Bangladesh and a 'green economy' that addresses the current environmental and economic crisis."

"Aquaculture enhances soil fertility from fish waste discharge and contributes to pest control as several fish varieties feed on insects that harm crops," Hoq said.

Interesting2:  Social wasps build an internal society or specialized workers. How do they do this on a genetic level? What makes a wasp do one task or another? The workers all support the queen of the colony. Scientists at the University of Bristol have sequenced the active parts of the genome — or transcriptome — of primitively eusocial wasps to identify which part makes a queen or a worker.

The study, published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Genome Biology, shows that workers have a more active transcriptome than queens. This suggests that in these simple societies, workers may be the jack-of-all-trades in the colony, leaving the queen with a somewhat restricted set of work tasks.

Studying primitively eusocial species like these wasps can tell us about how sociability evolves. Dr Seirian Sumner from Bristol's School of Biological Sciences and colleagues sequenced transcriptomes from the eusocial tropical paper wasp Polistes canadensis. All social species ultimately evolved from a solitary ancestor — in this case a solitary wasp, who lays the eggs and feeds the brood.

But how does this ancestral solitary phenotype split to produce specialized reproducers (queens) and brood carers (workers) when a species becomes social? In wasps, as in other Hymenoptera, sexes are also significantly genetically different.

Wasps store sperm inside their body and control its release for each individual egg as it is laid; if a female wishes to produce a male egg, she simply lays the egg without fertilizing it. Therefore, under most conditions in most species, wasps have complete voluntary control over the sex of their offspring.

Eusocial is defined as living in a cooperative group in which usually one female and several males are reproductively active and the nonbreeding individuals care for the young or protect and provide for the group.

This paper gives a first insight into the secret lives of social insects. It shows that workers retain a highly active transcriptome, possibly expressing many of the ancestral genes that are required for our solitary wasp to be successful on her own.

Conversely, queens appear to shut down a lot of their genes, presumably in order to be really good reproducers. Long-standing analyses based on the fossil record holds ants and wasps in a clade known as Vespoidea, with bees as a sister group.

The researchers reassess the relationships between the subfamilies of bees, wasps and ants and suggest that wasps are part of a separate clade from ants and bees, though further genome sequences and comparative data will help to resolve this controversy.

Dr Sumner said: "This finding would have important general implications for our understanding of eusociality as it would suggest that bees and ants shared an aculeate wasp-like ancestor, that ants are wingless wasps, and that bees are wasps that lost predacious behaviors."

This study suggests that novel genes play a much more important role in social behavior than was previously thought. Is society a result of genes or a result of the members of the society working together?