Hawaiian Islands Weather Details & Aloha Paragraphs / May 20-21, 2018

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

82 – 72  Lihue, Kauai
87 – 75  Honolulu, Oahu
83 – 74  Molokai AP
82 – 71  Kahului AP, Maui
83 – 73  Kailua Kona
77 – 69  Hilo AP, Hawaii

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

0.67  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.15  Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
0.14  Molokai
0.00  Lanai
0.23  Kahoolawe
2.11  Puu Kukui, Maui
2.84  Papaikou Well, Big Island

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

32  Port Allen, Kauai
44  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
25  Molokai
35  Lanai
35  Kahoolawe
37  Maalaea Bay, Maui
40  Waikoloa, 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 pressure northwest through northeast…with troughs just north

An upper level low to the west…deep clouds far south and southwest

Clear to partly cloudy…cloudy spots locally
 

Showers over parts of the islands…and offshore
  Looping image

 

Here’s the latest VOG Forecast Animation

Here’s the Vog Information website

Trace ashfall possible from Kilauea Volcano…South Big Island

Small Craft Advisory…Maalaea Bay, Pailolo and Alenuihaha Channels and Big Island southeast waters

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

 

Broad Brush Overview: A classic late spring trade wind weather pattern will accompany us through the next week, with clouds and showers most focused along the windward sides of the islands. The leeward sides of the smaller islands in particular, will find pleasant weather conditions continuing…with lots of daytime sunshine.

Details: A trade wind producing ridge of high pressure will remain in place to our north, supporting our trade wind flow across the state. The parent high to this ridge will weaken and move east as a cold front passes to the north. However, a new high building in behind this front, will continue the trade winds…with any decrease in wind speed short-lived.

The models continue to point out a relatively dry trade wind weather pattern over the smaller islands. However, satellite imagery shows an area of moisture, which is bringing some showers our way.  The bulk of this moisture is pushing in across the Big Island and Maui, with only a slight increase in showers expected over windward portions of the other islands.

Looking Ahead: As a new high builds north of the islands Tuesday and Wednesday, it will carry pockets of moisture…bringing off and on passing windward showers for most of the new week. The models indicate that moisture associated with the passing front may get caught in the trade wind flow, and bring an increase in windward showers next weekend.

>>> Meanwhile, close monitoring of Kilauea on the Big Island continues, as Hawaii Volcano Observatory personnel indicate that additional steam-driven explosions are possible at any time. If this occurs…an Ashfall Advisory or Warning would likely become necessary then.

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 Environmental Conditions: Strong trades associated with high pressure north, are forecast to hold through much of the upcoming week. Strongest winds are expected over the channels east of Oahu, south of the Big Island, and Maalaea Bay. A weakness within the ridge to our north is forecast to develop by Tuesday, as a front passes by far north of the area, which may cause our strong trades to weaken slightly for a brief period.

Two overlapping south-southwest swells from a couple of sources that passed near New Zealand around a week ago have arrived. Surf heights associated with this swell should stay just below the surf advisory level for south facing shores. A gradual downward trend is expected Monday. Another similar pulse out of the south-southwest is expected by mid-week or Thursday.

Surf from the north-northwest swell  will continue to fade through. Another small north-northwest pulse could bring the surf by mid-week along north facing shores.

Surf along east facing shores will remain rough, as strong trades hold locally and upstream. Heights should remain below advisory levels for east facing shores. Heights should trend down slightly through the first half of the week, as a front passes to the north and the large area of upstream strong winds weaken.

The models depict plenty of energy setting up within Hawaii’s swell window from the Tasman Sea early next week. If the generating storms evolve as predicted, the associated surf should make it to the local Hawaiian waters toward the end of the month, around 5/29…time will tell.

 

World-wide Tropical Cyclone activity

Here’s the latest Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) Weather Wall Presentation covering a tropical disturbance being referred to as Invest 92A…in the Arabian Sea

 

>>> Atlantic Ocean: No active tropical cyclones

>>> Caribbean Sea: No active tropical cyclones

>>> Gulf of Mexico: No active tropical cyclones

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.

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: How 3,000-Pound Dinosaurs Sat on Eggs But Didn’t Crush Them – Imagine a giant, bird-like dinosaur that was so heavy, it weighed as much as a modern-day rhinoceros. Given its heft, how did this bulky, feathered beast sit on its eggs without crushing them to smithereens?

If your immediate response is “carefully,” that’s a good start, but a new analysis takes a deeper dive. These small-to-humongous dinosaurs, known as oviraptorosaurs, laid their oval eggs in a doughnut-like circle, and these nests had different shapes depending on the size of the dinosaur.

Smaller oviraptorosaurs either had no doughnut hole or a small one where they could sit with their eggs around them, while larger oviraptorosaurs created nests with big holes in the center where the dinosaurs could plop down without squashing the eggs located in a circle around them, a new study finds.

“Oviraptorosaurs appear to have adapted to being able to sit on their clutches, even at giant body size,” study co-author Darla Zelenitsky, an assistant professor of paleontology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada reports.

However, no birds alive today practice this trick. (Birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs, which were mainly meat-eating, bipedal beasts such as oviraptorosaurs and Tyrannosaurus rex.)

Nearly all species of modern birds sit on their eggs, Zelenitsky said.

“The largest birds, however, are much smaller than the largest oviraptorosaur,” Zelenitsky said.

Egg-cellent nesting

Oviraptorosaurs were bizarre-looking dinosaurs. They had parrot-like heads and toothless beaks, and some sported head crests, much like modern cassowary birds do. These dinosaurs ranged in size from a few dozen pounds (Nomingia, for instance, weighed about 80 lbs. to a few thousand pounds, while Gigantoraptor weighed up to 4,400 lbs.)

Over the years, researchers have found many well-preserved oviraptorosaur eggs and skeletons, including fossils of oviraptorosaur parents sitting on their nests. (Technically, the nests themselves didn’t fossilize, so scientists call the preserved eggs a “clutch.” But, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll refer to them as nests.)

The nests the researchers examined, about 40 in all, were between 100 million and 70 million years old, Zelenitsky said.

“Oviraptorosaurs seem to have been very picky about how their eggs were arranged in the nest,” she said. This proved helpful, because it allowed the researchers to accurately measure the diameters of the entire nests, as well as the doughnut holes in the middle, Zelenitsky said.

The diameters of the entire nests ranged from about 16 inches for the pint-size oviraptorosaurs under 88 lbs. to nearly 11 feet for the 3,300-lb. beasts, Zelenitsky said. After measuring the doughnut holes in the center, the researchers found that smaller oviraptorosaurs sat either directly on their eggs or in a small hole in the center of the nest. Meanwhile, the bigger dinosaurs placed their eggs in a ring farther from the center of the nest, meaning oviraptorosaurs may have had little contact with the eggs when they sat down.

“This egg-free opening in clutches became larger with increasing species size,” Zelenitsky said. “In the largest species, the opening, rather than the eggs, occupied most of the clutch area.”

These doughnut holes allowed the adult oviraptorosaurs to sit in the nest and maybe even touch the eggs — perhaps allowing the animals to protect, shelter and provide heat for their developing babies. However, if keeping the eggs warm was the goal, this strategy may have been lacking, the researchers noted.

“This brooding behavior may have been less effective in large species, because there may have been less contact with the eggs due to the modified configuration of their clutches,” the researchers wrote in the study.

The study was published online May 16 in the journal Biology Letters.