Hawaiian Islands Weather Details & Aloha Paragraphs / May 15-16, 2018

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

79 – 70  Lihue, Kauai
85 – 73  Honolulu, Oahu
81 – 71  Molokai AP
81 – 69  Kahului AP, Maui
85 – 74  Kailua Kona
83 – 67  Hilo AP, Hawaii

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

0.05  Princeville AP, Kauai
2.55  Tunnel RG, Oahu
1.16  Molokai
0.77  Lanai
1.71  Kahoolawe
4.30 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.34  Kawainui Stream, Big Island

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

18  Poipu, Kauai
25  Kuaokala, Oahu
24  Molokai
23  Lanai
30  Kahoolawe
27  Maalaea Bay, Maui
27  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

High well north…with a trough of low pressure just northeast

High Cirrus just southwest of the state

Clear to partly cloudy…some cloudy areas

Showers locally…mostly windward and offshore
Looping image

 

Here’s the latest VOG Forecast Animation

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

 

Ashfall Advisory…South Big Island

 

Broad Brush Overview: The current trade wind flow will weaken into mid-week, then become stronger once again Thursday into the weekend. Low clouds and showers carried our way on these trades, will remain focused over the windward and mountain areas. However, local daytime sea breezes may allow clouds and a few showers to develop over interior and upcountry leeward sections of the smaller islands each afternoon…through Wednesday.

Details: A high pressure system located well north-northeast of state, is keeping light to moderate trades active across the islands. Meanwhile, the tail-end of a late season cold front is located far northwest of the islands. This weather feature will be tracking eastward, while the high pressure system north-northeast moves away. This in turn will cause our local winds to relax in strength…resulting in a lighter trade wind flow through Wednesday night.

We find relatively stable atmospheric conditions across the island chain now. In addition, satellite and radar images show an area of low clouds and scattered showers near Molokai, Maui and the northeastern Big Island. Most of this precipitation is occurring over windward sections of these islands. This area of low clouds and showers is likely related to the remnant moisture from the tail-end of a former cold front…which is shifting slowly southward.

As previously mentioned, the trade winds are in the process of diminishing now. This will allow local afternoon onshore flowing sea breezes to begin during the days, followed by nighttime offshore flowing land breezes over each of the individual islands. If in fact these sea breezes do occur, clouds and a few showers will develop over interior and leeward upcountry sections of some of the smaller islands…during the afternoon hours through Wednesday.

Looking Ahead: As the cold front departs the area north of the islands Thursday, we should find a new high building far northwest later this week. This will likely cause the trades to strengthen again starting Thursday…prevailing through the weekend. Thus, look for strong trade winds across most areas by Saturday. Stable conditions will result in brief trade showers over some windward sections of the state later this week into the weekend.

Here’s a near real-time Wind Profile of the Pacific Ocean – along with a Closer View of the islands / Here’s the latest Weather Map

Marine Environment Details: High pressure north-northeast of the state will shift eastward and further away from the area over the next couple of days, with light to moderate trades prevailing over the coastal waters. The trades will strengthen Thursday, and reach moderate to strong levels Friday through the weekend…as a new high builds to the north of the state. Winds are expected to increase to Small Craft Advisory levels across the typically windy waters around Maui County and the Big Island Friday through the weekend.

Surf will remain below advisory levels. The current small north-northwest swell will diminish through Wednesday. Another round of small north to northwest swells are expected Thursday through the weekend. A series of small south swells will continue to arrive along our south facing shores through the weekend.

 

World-wide Tropical Cyclone activity

Here’s the Wednesday Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) Weather Wall Presentation covering the western Pacific and Indian Oceans, covering a tropical disturbance being referred to as Invest 91A in the Arabian Sea…which has a high chance of developing

Here’s the Wednesday Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) Weather Wall Presentation covering a dissipating tropical disturbance in the northeastern part of the Gulf of Mexico

 

>>> Atlantic Ocean: No active tropical cyclones

>>> Caribbean Sea: No active tropical cyclones

>>> Gulf of Mexico: No active tropical cyclones

1.) An area of disturbed weather is active in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and over the Florida Peninsula…despite the fact that we’re two weeks away from the beginning of the hurricane season

A broad non-tropical area of low pressure located over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico is producing widespread cloudiness, showers, and thunderstorms across much of Florida, southeastern Georgia and a good portion of the Bahamas.

This system has not become any better organized since yesterday and conditions are becoming even less favorable for subtropical or tropical cyclone formation.

This system, however, will continue to produce locally heavy rainfall and possible flash flooding across portions of Florida and the southeastern United States during the next few days while the low moves generally northward.

* Formation chance through 2-days…low…10 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…10 percent

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: No active tropical cyclones

Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 5 days.

>>> Today marks the first day of the eastern North Pacific hurricane season, which will run until November 30.

>>> Long-term averages for the number of named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes are 15, 8, and 4, respectively.

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: No active tropical cyclones

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

>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean: No active tropical cyclones

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

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


Interesting: Hawaii Volcano update video

What’s the Most Massive Object in the Universe? – There’s nothing like staring up at the night sky to make you feel small. Although when looking out into the cosmos, you might also wonder: What is the most massive known object in the universe?

In some ways, the question depends on what is meant by the word “object.” Astronomers have spotted structures like the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall ­— a colossal filament of gas, dust and dark matter containing billions of galaxies that stretches for about 10 billion light-years in length — which could contend for the title of biggest object ever. But classifying this assembly as a unique object is problematic because it’s hard to figure out exactly where it begins and ends.

“Object” actually has a clear definition in physics or astrophysics, said Scott Chapman, an astrophysicist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. “That’s something bound together by its own self-gravity,” he said, such as a planet, star or the stars orbiting within a single galaxy.

With this in mind, it’s a bit easier to figure out what’s in the running for the most massive thing in the universe. The award could go to different entities depending on the scale being considered, but each prizewinner has provided scientists insights into the limits of size and mass in the cosmos.

Biggest planet, star and galaxy cluster

For our relatively tiny species, the planet Earth is plenty big, at about 13 septillion pounds…or 13 with 24 zeroes after it. But it’s not even the largest planet in the solar system, being dwarfed by the outer giants Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and mighty Jupiter, which weighs in at 4.2 octillion pounds, or 4.2 with 27 zeroes after it. Researchers have uncovered thousands of planets orbiting other stars, including many that make our local giants look puny.

Discovered in 2016, HR2562 b is the heaviest exoplanet found to date, with a mass 30 times that of Jupiter. At that size, astronomers are unsure whether to classify the behemoth as a brown dwarf, which would make it a type of small star rather than a planet.

Stars themselves can grow to enormous sizes, with the most massive known star, R136a1, being somewhere between 265 and 315 times heavier than our sun, which is a mind-boggling 4.4 nonillion pounds…or 4.4 with 30 zeroes after it. Located 130,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy orbiting our Milky Way, R136a1 is so big and bright that the light it emits is actually tearing it apart, according to a 2010 study in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The electromagnetic radiation streaming from the star is powerful enough to carry away material from the surface, causing the star to lose about 16 Earth’s worth of mass every single year. Astronomers are unsure exactly how such a self-destructive star could form and how much longer it will hold itself together.

Galaxies are the next objects up the size scale of the cosmos. The Milky Way galaxy is already mind-bendingly massive, stretching 100,000 light-years from end to end, containing approximately 200 billion stars, and weighing about 1.7 trillion times the mass of our sun. But it can’t compete with the central galaxy of the Phoenix Cluster, a leviathan 2.2 million light-years across that contains about 3 trillion stars, according to NASA.

At the center of this beast is a supermassive black hole —  the largest ever seen — with an estimated mass of 20 billion suns. The Phoenix Cluster itself is an enormous accumulation of approximately 1,000 galaxies all orbiting one another about 5.7 billion light-years away with a total mass of about 2 quadrillion suns, which is 2 with 15 zeros after it, according to a 2012 paper in the journal Nature.

But even that goliath can’t compete with what is likely the most massive object ever seen — a recently discovered galactic protocluster known as SPT2349, which was described April 25 in the journal Nature.

“We hit the jackpot with this structure,” Chapman, whose team uncovered the record-breaker. “More than 14 very massive individual galaxies crammed into the space of something not much larger than our Milky Way.”

Spotted when the universe was just a tenth of its current age, the individual galaxies in this pileup will eventually combine into one gargantuan galaxy, the most massive in the universe.  And it’s just the tip of the iceberg, Chapman said. Further observations have revealed that the total structure contains around 50 additional galaxies that will all settle into an object known as a galactic cluster, in which many galaxies all orbit one another.

The previous most massive record-holder, the appropriately named El Gordo Cluster, weighs the equivalent of 3 quadrillion (or 3 with 15 zeroes after it) suns, although SPT2349 is likely to outweigh it by at least four to five times.

That such an enormous object could form when the universe was just 1.4 billion years old was surprising to the researchers, since computer simulations suggested it would normally take much longer for such large objects to appear.

“The central massive galaxy forms incredibly early and much more explosively and rapidly than we would have imagined,” Chapman said. “Just the blink of the eye on the cosmic timescales.”

Given that humans have searched only a fraction of the sky for such things, even more massive objects might be lurking out there in the universe, he added.