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

80 – 75  Lihue, Kauai
86 – 77  Honolulu, Oahu
85 – 75  Molokai AP
88 – 72  Kahului AP, Maui
86 – 76  Kailua Kona
84 – 71 Hilo AP, Hawaii

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

6.43  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
3.69  Nuuanu Upper, Oahu
1.30  Molokai
0.53  Lanai
 0.01  Kahoolawe
2.87  Puu Kukui, Maui
2.60  Puu Waawaa, Big Island

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

15  Waimea Heights, Kauai
31  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
24  Molokai
17  Lanai
29  Kahoolawe
20  Maalaea Bay, Maui
20  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 10,000+ feet high 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


http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/tpac/avn-animated.gif
 Tropical Depression Lane will continue moving off to the west-southwest of the state / Tropical Storm Mirian remains active in the eastern Pacific, well east-southeast of Hawaii, and will head towards us…although will likely veer to the north when it reaches within about 1,000 miles to our east (click images to enlarge)

 

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters/14E/imagery/vis-animated.gif

Tropical Depression Lane still has associated thunderstorms streaming from its center

 

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Showers locally and offshore…a few are still heavy
 Looping image

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

 

Small Craft Advisory

 

Broad Brush Overview: A trailing band of deep tropical moisture from Tropical Depression Lane, will keep windward areas showery through tonight, while leeward areas see a few showers from time to time. Drier, more typical trade wind weather is expected to move in from east to west across the state Tuesday, with quite comfortable weather expected Wednesday through Friday…with noticeably lower humidity levels. A more showery trade wind pattern may return by the weekend.

Details: Tropical Depression Lane is forecast to track westward, before making a turn toward the north Tuesday through the end of the work week. Meanwhile, high pressure will remain in place well to the north of the state through the weekend, keeping trade winds blowing across the island chain. Moderate trade winds are expected through tonight, becoming a bit stronger Tuesday through Thursday. The trades are then expected to back-off Friday through the weekend…as low pressure approaches or moves over the state.

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 / Here’s the latest Vog Forecast Animation / Here’s the Vog Information website

Marine Environmental Conditions: Locally strong trades will persist through at least Wednesday. Tropical Cyclone Miriam is forecast to enter the Central Pacific Hurricane Center area of responsibility Wednesday afternoon. Miriam’s track has the storm moving north once it crosses 140W longitude. It is uncertain at this time what strength the trades will be after Thursday, it all depends on Miriam’s track, although a surface trough may form just east of the Big Island…making our local trades lighter in the process.

Surf will be small through the upcoming weekend, although there will be swells from the northwest, south, and southwest to keep the surf from becoming flat. The largest of the south swell is due in over the weekend.



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World-wide Tropical Cyclone Activity

 

Here’s the Monday Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) Weather Wall Presentation covering the Atlantic Ocean

Here’s the latest Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) Weather Wall Presentation covering the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including Tropical Cyclone 14E (Lane), and Tropical Storm 15E (Miriam)


>>> Atlantic Ocean: No active tropical cyclones

>>> Caribbean Sea: No active tropical cyclones

>>> Gulf of Mexico: No active tropical cyclones

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

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: 

Tropical Storm 15E (Miriam) remains active, and will be increasing to a hurricane tonight or Tuesday

Here’s what the computer models are showing for this tropical storm


According to the NHC…Miriam is moving toward the west near 15 mph and this general motion is expected to continue for the next few days.

Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 60 mph with higher gusts. Additional strengthening is forecast, and Miriam is expected to become a hurricane by tonight or early Tuesday.

Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles from the center.

>>> Meanwhile, a tropical disturbance, being referred to as Invest 90E is active

According to the NHC…Showers and thunderstorms associated with an area of low pressure located about 450 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, are showing some signs of organization.

Environmental conditions are expected to become more conducive for the development of this disturbance, and a tropical depression is likely to form within the next day or two while the system moves generally west-northwestward at around 10 mph.

Here’s what the computer models are showing for this tropical disturbance

* Formation chance through 48 hours…high…80 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…90 percent

>>> Central Pacific:

Tropical Depression 14E (Lane) continues moving away

Here’s what the computer models are showing for this tropical depression


According to the CPHC…The depression is moving toward the west near 9 mph, and this motion is expected to continue on Monday. A brief slowing in forward motion is expected Monday night as Lane makes a turn toward the northwest. Lane is then expected to accelerate northwestward Tuesday and Wednesday.

Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph with higher gusts. Little change in strength is forecast during the next 48 hours, but Lane is expected to become a post-tropical remnant low today. Lane may develop into a gale force extratropical low as it passes over portions of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Tuesday and Wednesday.

>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean: No active tropical cyclones

>>> South 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: ‘Lost Squadron’ WWII Warplane Discovered Deep Beneath a Greenland Glacier – Searchers have located the wreck of a P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft buried deep within a glacier in Greenland, more than 70 years after a lost squadron of U.S. warplanes crash-landed on the ice there during World War II.

The search team plans to dig and melt the rediscovered warplane out of the glacier next summer — and the searchers hope that their techniques can locate other World War II air wrecks in the region, including some that carried MIA (missing in action) U.S. airmen.

The search leader, California businessman Jim Salazar, told that the team found the wrecked P-38 on July 4, beneath more than 300 feet of ice using a ground-penetrating radar antenna fitted to a heavy-lift aerial drone. The drone was scanning a part of the glacier where hints of the buried warplane were detected in 2011.

Salazar said that the radar-equipped drone had located the warplane beneath the ice in a few minutes of flight time, while a ground crew would have taken 6 or 7 hours to cover the same area with a radar sled.

The buried plane was in a remote region made dangerous by hidden ice crevasses, sudden storms and hungry polar bears. “This is a very cold-weather region and an inhospitable location,” Salazar said.

Snowball Route

This latest find echoes the 1992 recovery of another P-38 fighter from the same “Lost Squadron” of U.S. warplanes in Greenland. That fighter was eventually restored to flying condition under the name “Glacier Girl”.

Both aircraft were part of a group of two B-17 bombers and six P-38 fighters flying from the U.S. to Britain in July 1942. They were traveling through a chain of secret airbases in Newfoundland, Greenland and Iceland known as the Snowball Route.

Hundreds of U.S. aircraft flew this route during World War II as part of Operation Bolero, which delivered warplanes, pilots, equipment and supplies for the planned Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.

But after flying into a severe blizzard, the eight aircraft from the lost squadron were forced to crash-land on the surface of the glacier beside Køge Bay in southeastern Greenland.

Salazar said that the area was known to pilots as Piteraq Alley because of its tendency to spawn severe snowstorms that can arise in minutes — called “piteraq” in the Greenland Inuit language.

A similar storm kept the search team in its tents on the glacier for three days during this summer’s expedition, Salazar said.

Greenland’s Bermuda Triangle

The rediscovered fighter has been identified from its crash site as P-38 “Echo”, piloted by Army Air Corps Lt. Col. Robert Wilson.

Wilson and the other airmen from the lost squadron warplanes were rescued from the ice, but other U.S. servicemen whose planes crashed in the same area were not so fortunate.

“It’s Greenland’s ‘Bermuda Triangle’ … the weather there shifts in a matter of minutes,” Salazar said. “As a pilot, you can clearly understand why there were so many difficulties in that area.”

Salazar has led searchers to the Greenland glacier in search of the Lost Squadron planes since 2011, through a nonprofit he co-founded with colleague Ken McBride called Arctic Hot Point Solutions.

The summer expeditions, each consisting of a team of about six searchers, had cost between $300,000 and $450,000 apiece, Salazar said. Most of that money has come from Salazar himself, who owns a machinery business in Pasadena, California.

The team now hopes to recover the newly found P-38 fighter from its icy tomb and restore the plane to flying condition.

The twin-tailed P-38 Lightning was an iconic World War II aircraft, but only about 10 remain in museums around the world and only a few are still flying, Salazar said.

Aircraft graveyard

Salazar now hopes that aerial drones equipped with ground-penetrating radar can help the team find the wreck of a Grumman J2F-4 amphibious “Duck” aircraft, operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. That plane crashed on the same glacier in Greenland in November 1942, just a few months after the lost squadron went down.

The Duck aircraft had been part of a search effort for the surviving crew of a C-53 Skytrooper aircraft, operated by the U.S. Army Air Corps, that also crash-landed on the glacier in bad weather, Salazar said.

The bodies of the crew from the crashed C-53 were never recovered; nor were the bodies of three U.S. serviceman on board the Duck aircraft recovered, in spite of a multimillion-dollar search effort funded by the U.S. government’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA.

In 2013, the DPAA announced that it had found the Duck crash site, but the reported discovery turned out to be a “false positive,” Salazar said.

If all goes well, and the weather in Greenland permits it, Salazar’s team will work on three aircraft wrecks next summer: melting and digging through the ice to recover the newly found P-38, searching for the wreck of the U.S. Coast Guard Duck, and searching for the wreck of the C-53.

Although radio contact established that about five of the U.S. servicemen on board the C-53 had survived the crash, bad weather and the subsequent crashes of the search-and-rescue aircraft meant the crewmen were never brought back — eventually they would have starved or frozen to death. “Our intention is to repatriate these men,” Salazar said.