Air Temperatures – The following high temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday…along with the low temperatures Monday:

78 – 63  Lihue, Kauai
80 – 64  Honolulu, Oahu
79 – 56  Molokai AP
82 – 57  Kahului AP, Maui
82 – 65  Kailua Kona
82 – 64  Hilo AP, Hawaii

Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands Monday evening:

0.18  N Wailua Ditch, Kauai
0.12  Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
 0.00  Molokai
 0.00  Lanai
 0.00  Kahoolawe
0.01  Puu Kukui, Maui
0.32  Kealakomo, Big Island

The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph) Monday evening:

13  Port Allen, Kauai
10  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
09  Molokai
07  Lanai
14  Kahoolawe
09  Maalaea Bay, Maui
15  Kealakomo, Big Island

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of our tallest mountain Mauna Kea (nearly 13,800 feet high) on the Big Island of Hawaii. Here’s the webcam for the Haleakala Crater on Maui. These webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands, and at night whenever there’s a big moon shining down. Also, at night you will be able to see the stars — and the sunrise and sunset too — depending upon weather conditions.


Aloha Paragraphs

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Low pressure to the north…with an associated cold front northwest

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/cpac/ir4.jpg
This next cold front continues slowly approaching the state

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg
Clear to partly cloudy…with some cloudy areas locally

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Scattered showers locally – Looping image

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

 

Flash Flood Watch…Niihau, Kauai, and Oahu

Small Craft Advisory…northwest waters, windward and leeward waters around Kauai

 

Broad Brush Overview: An approaching cold front to the northwest, will cause our winds to become south to southeasterly. These winds will be light enough for sea breezes to develop, carrying moisture over the islands from the nearby ocean, leading to afternoon clouds and spotty showers over the interior upcountry areas. In addition, these southeast breezes will likely carry volcanic haze (vog) from the Big Island vents…up over the smaller islands in the chain locally. A cold front and its associated rainfall will slowly move down the island chain Tuesday through Wednesday, eventually stalling across the eastern end of the state Thursday and Friday.

Details:  The models show this cold front, located west of Kauai, approaching and slowly moving down the island chain. There will likely be a line of showers along and ahead of the front, impacting Kauai late tonight through Tuesday. This band of clouds will continue eastward Tuesday night into Wednesday over Oahu and Maui County. There will be some pre-frontal shower activity within the southerly winds out ahead of the front as well…reaching Oahu and Maui County Tuesday. Despite the instability associated with this front and an associated upper low, a limiting factor in terms of precipitation, will be the lack of available deep layer moisture. There’s a slight chance of thunderstorms beginning early Tuesday morning over the western end of the state, moving over Oahu and Maui County later Tuesday into the night. 

Looking Ahead: The models show a gradual drying trend during the second half of the week, especially over the Kauai end of the state. The weakened cold front may get hung-up over the eastern islands. This, combined with an upper trough in the vicinity of the islands, will likely keep the rain chances active over parts of Maui County and the Big Island. Heading into the upcoming weekend, the GFS and ECMWF models are suggesting that yet another upper level trough may move into the area from the northwest. This could trigger heavy showers, though details on timing and location are still unavailable. As I was saying here yesterday, there remains a fair amount of uncertainty in what will happen in terms of our local weather, as the models continue to sort out the details coming up later this week.

Here’s a wind profile of the Pacific Ocean – Closer view of the islands / Here’s the vog forecast animation / Here’s the latest weather map

Marine environment details: South and southeast winds are expected as a cold front approaches from the northwest. The front will reach Kauai early Tuesday morning and then continue moving slowly east through the week. Winds ahead of the front will remain from the south and southeast, and behind the front winds will turn west. Moderate northwest swells will continue through the week.

A moderate northwest swell will increase across the islands into Tuesday, with surf reaching near advisory levels for north and west facing shores…with seas reaching near Small Craft Advisory levels by mid-week.


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Weather changes on the horizon



World-wide Tropical Cyclone activity

 Here’s the latest PDC Weather Wall Presentation, covering Tropical Cyclone 02W (Sanba) and Tropical Cyclone 09P (Gita)


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>>> Atlantic Ocean:

>>> Caribbean Sea:

>>> Gulf of Mexico:

Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico

Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

>>> Eastern Pacific:

Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.

Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

>>> Central Pacific:

Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)

>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean: 

Tropical Cyclone 02W (Sanba)

JTWC textual forecast warning
JTWC graphical track map
NOAA satellite image

>>> South Pacific Ocean: 


Tropical Cyclone 09P (Gita)

JTWC textual forecast warning
JTWC graphical track map
NOAA satellite image

>>> North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea: No active tropical cyclones

Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)


Interesting: Salmon face double whammy from toxic stormwater – Washington State University researchers have found that salmon face a double whammy when they swim in the stormwater runoff of urban roadways.

First, as scientists learned a couple years ago, toxic pollution in the water can kill them. WSU researchers have now determined that fish that survive polluted stormwater are still at risk.

Experiments on both larval zebrafish, a model for salmon, and actual coho salmon showed that toxic runoff can also damage hair-like sensors the fish use to find food, sense predators, and find their way in the current.

“We’re showing that even if the fish are surviving the stormwater exposure, they still might not be able to detect the world around them as well, which can make it harder for them to find food or more likely for them to get eaten,” said Allison Coffin, an assistant professor of neuroscience at WSU Vancouver.

Coffin’s findings appear in Scientific Reports, an open-access journal from the publishers of Nature. Her co-authors include Jenifer McIntyre, a WSU aquatic ecotoxicologist who was part of a team that in 2011 found toxic runoff is killing adult coho in urban watersheds.

Soil-based filtering help limited

A bright spot in a follow-up study showed that soil-based filtering systems like rain gardens can improve survival. Paradoxically, the researchers found that the filtration benefit was not universal. Filtered water blunted the sensory damage to zebrafish but not coho. The fish is listed as endangered or threatened along much of the Pacific Coast.

Ordinarily, Coffin specializes in fish hearing — studying the hair-like tufts of sensory cells arrayed along each side of zebrafish in what is called the lateral line. Like the specialized hairs in animal ears, vibrations prompt ions in the hair cells to put out an electrical current that is then processed by the brain to decipher sound or detect motion.

In the current study, Coffin and her colleagues exposed fish to stormwater collected from Washington State Route 520 near the Montlake Cut. The highway connects Seattle to cities east of Lake Washington and, with some 70,000 vehicles a day, is one of the most heavily trafficked routes in the state, but with roughly half the traffic of Interstates 5 and 90.

Zebrafish larvae exposed to runoff from a June 2014 storm developed one-third fewer hair cells in their head and trunk. June 2015 runoff was outright lethal, and even at a 10 percent concentration of stormwater to pure water caused significant reductions in the cells. Coho embryos exposed to stormwater during development also had fewer hair cells, though to a lesser degree.

Dye reveals diminished functions

Coffin also treated the cells with a dye that glows when they are activated. She saw that cells of older zebrafish embryos didn’t glow much when they were exposed to water the December 2014 and June 2015 stormwater, meaning the cells weren’t very active.

“These results suggest that developed hair cells survive acute stormwater exposure but that function is compromised,” she and her colleagues write.

It’s unclear what might be happening. For the lateral line to develop, certain genes need to be turned on, said Coffin.

“What we think is happening is the stormwater is interfering with that genetic process,” she said.

Filtering doesn’t prevent damage

The researchers also noticed that filtering stormwater is of limited help in protecting the lateral line. Previous work found that it prevents the stormwater from killing coho. But in this study the researchers saw it did not prevent defects in the lateral line of coho. This could be because coho take longer than zebrafish to develop, making their embryos more sensitive to trace amounts of toxic substances.

It’s unclear what in the stormwater is having these effects. Stormwater is effectively a toxic mixture that can include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, many of which are carcinogenic, metals, suspended particles, and other organic compounds, most of which have yet to be identified.