Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / October 3-4, 2008

October 3-4 2008

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

Lihue, Kauai – 85
Honolulu, Oahu – 89
Kaneohe, Oahu – 83
Kahului, Maui – 88
Hilo, Hawaii – 82
Kailua-kona – 87

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 5 p.m. Friday evening:

Port Allen – 86F  
Hilo, Hawaii – 74

Haleakala Crater    – 46  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 37  (near 14,000 feet on the Big Island)

Precipitation Totals – The following numbers represent the largest precipitation totals (inches) during the last 24 hours on each of the major islands, as of Friday afternoon:

0.82 Mount Waialeale Kauai
0.24 Manoa Valley, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.10 Puu Kukui, Maui
0.25 Hilo airport, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a 1024 millibar high pressure system to the north of the islands. The location and strength of this high pressure cell will keep light to moderately strong trade winds blowing across our islands…locally stronger.

Satellite and Radar Images: To view the cloud conditions we have here in Hawaii, please use the following satellite links, starting off with the Infrared Satellite Image of the islands to see all the clouds around the state during the day and night. This next image is one that gives close images of the islands only during the daytime hours, and is referred to as a Close-up visible image. This next image shows a larger view of the Pacific…giving perspective to the wider ranging cloud patterns in the Pacific Ocean. To help you keep track of where any showers may be around the islands, here’s the latest animated radar image. 

Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live webcam on the summit of near 14,000 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. The tallest peak on the island of Maui is the Haleakala Crater, which is near 10,000 feet in elevation. These two webcams are available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon rising just after sunset for an hour or two! Plus, during the nights and early mornings you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise too…depending upon weather conditions.

Aloha Paragraphs

  Iao Stream and Needle on Maui
Photo Credit: flickr.com

 

There are plenty of things that don’t seem normal at the moment, but our local Hawaiian weather picture isn’t one of them. We find all the necessary ingredients to qualify as routine now, with light to moderately strong trade winds, and the obligatory few passing showers along the windward sides. There will be no shortage of daytime sunshine, especially along those warm to very warm leeward beaches. The nights will be getting longer slowly, although air temperatures will remain seasonably warm under the influence of air brought in by the easterly trade winds.

Looking at the latest GFS computer model, we find trade wind producing high pressure systems parked generally to the north through the next several days, which eventually shift to the northeast away from Hawaii. This migration of the high pressure cell is induced by the approach of a storm moving along in the mid-latitudes next week. This low, with its associated cold front don’t get close to our islands. This allows the trade winds to continue blowing through at least the next week, keeping favorably inclined weather over the Aloha state.

Glancing eastward, we see hurricane Marie spinning the waters of the eastern Pacific, located approximately 2000 miles away. Marie will sport these hurricane force winds only briefly before moving over cooler sea surface temperatures…bringing her down into the tropical storm category again. Well before Marie gets anywhere near our central Pacific, all the winds will have left her sails. Here’s a tracking map showing this hurricane in relation to our Hawaiian Islands…a satellite image too. A new tropical system named 15E has spun up Friday evening, which are shown on both the links above.

It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrative from Hawaii. As you can see from the two paragraphs above, our weather here in the Hawaiian Islands will remain really nice. I see nothing in the immediate future to interrupt this these pleasant, autumn weather circumstances. The prevailing trade wind flow will dominate our Hawaiian islands weather picture well into the future. ~~~ The haze problem that we saw Thursday afternoon into Friday morning, got blown away by the trade winds, so our air visibilities have improved markedly during the day. ~~~ I’m about ready to leave Kihei, for the drive to Kahului. I’m going to see the new western out called Appaloosa (2008), starring Ed Harris, Jeremy Irons, Robert Knott, Viggo Mortensen, and Renee Zellweger, among others. The Western genre continues its resurgence with this drama from actor-director Ed Harris. Based on Robert B. Parker’s novel, Appaloosa follows a pair of lawmen (played by Harris and Viggo Mortensen) who must unite over their town’s crisis, as they’re divided over their mutual love of a woman (Renée Zellweger). One critic writes this about the film: "A warmly made, slightly offbeat movie about friendly devotion. It also happens to be a western, and every man in it is grizzled or wizened or both." At any rate, I’m certainly drawn to it, and perhaps you will be too, here’s a trailer for your perusal. ~~~ I’ll be back early Saturday morning with your next new weather narrative, along with a movie review of my own. I hope you have a great Friday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

The world’s largest biomass power plant running exclusively on chicken manure has opened in the Netherlands. The power plant will deliver renewable electricity to 90,000 households. It has a capacity of 36.5 megawatts, and will generate more than 270 million kWh of electricity per year. The biomass power plant is more than merely “carbon neutral”.  If the chicken manure were to be spread out over farm land, it would release not only CO2, but also methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. By using the manure for power generation, the release of methane is avoided. The biomass power plant will utilize approximately 440,000 tons of chicken manure, roughly one third of the total amount produced each year in the Netherlands. Many European countries, including the Netherlands, suffer under an excess of different types of animal manure that pollute the environment.

Interesting2:

Thanks to a genetic breakthrough, a large portion of Earth’s now-inhospitable soil could be used to grow crops — potentially alleviating one of the most pressing problems facing the planet’s rapidly growing population. Scientists at the University of California, Riverside made plants tolerant of poisonous aluminum by tweaking a single gene. This may allow crops to thrive in the 40 to 50 percent of Earth’s soils currently rendered toxic by the metal. "Aluminum toxicity is a very limiting factor, especially in developing countries, in South America and Africa and Indonesia," said biochemist Paul Larsen. "It’s not like these areas are devoid of plant life, but they’re not crop plants.

Among agriculturally important plants, there aren’t mechanisms for aluminum tolerance."  The planet is rapidly running out of room to grow food, and scientists say that the world’s booming population — expected to swell by half in the next 50 years — will outstrip food production. There’s no more room for farms in the developed world; demand for cropland is fueling deforestation in the rain forests of Latin America and Africa; and the limits of the Green Revolution, which increased global food production through the use of pesticides and industrial farming techniques, have been reached. Another revolution, say agronomists, is needed.

Interesting3:

A paleontologist whose beachfront home in Texas was destroyed during Hurricane Ike has found a football-size tooth in the debris. Dorothy Sisk and Jim Westgate are scientists at LamarUniversity. They discovered the fossil tooth in the front yard of Sisk’s home in Caplen on the devastated BolivarPeninsula. Westgate believes the fossil is from a Columbian mammoth common in North America until around 10,000 years ago. The tooth looks like a series of boot soles or slices of bread wedged together. It is expected to be sent to the TexasMemorialMuseum in Austin. More than 1 million people fled the Texas coast because of Hurricane Ike.

Interesting4:

Arctic sea ice extent during the 2008 melt season dropped to the second-lowest level since satellite measurements began in 1979, reaching the lowest point in its annual cycle of melt and growth on Sept. 14, according to researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder‘s National Snow and IceDataCenter. Preliminary data also indicate 2008 may represent the lowest volume of Arctic sea ice on record, according to the researchers. The declining Arctic sea ice is due to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases that have elevated temperatures across the Arctic and strong natural variability in Arctic sea ice, according to scientists. Average sea ice extent during September, a benchmark measurement in the scientific study of Arctic sea ice, was 1.8 million square miles.

The record monthly low, set in 2007, was 1.65 million square miles. The third lowest monthly low was 2.15 square miles in 2005, according researchers at the center. The 2008 low strongly reinforces the 30-year downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent, said CU-Boulder Research Professor Mark Serreze, an NSIDC senior scientist. The 2008 September low was 34 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000 and only 9 percent greater than the 2007 record. Because the 2008 low was so far below the September average, the negative trend in the September extent has been pulled downward, from a minus 10.7 percent per decade to a minus 11.7 percent per decade, he said. "When you look at the sharp decline we have seen over the past 30 years, a recovery from lowest to second lowest is no recovery at all," Serreze said. "Both within and beyond the Arctic, the implications of the decline are enormous."

Interesting5:

Bluefin tuna from both sides of the Atlantic get together as juveniles, a discovery that could affect how the tuna fishery is managed. While North American and Mediterranean bluefin return home to spawn, a study published in Friday’s edition of the journal Science reveals that as youngsters the fish travel long distances to intermix. The researchers found that while the largest tuna — sought by commercial fishermen off North America — tend to be local fish, the smaller ones caught by sport fishermen often have originated in the Mediterranean. The team, led by Jay Rooker of TexasA&MUniversity and David Secor of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, was able to identify the origins of fish by examining the chemical composition of the otolith, or ear stone, of the tuna. "Juveniles are not conforming to the principal premise of how they’ve been managed — that fish keep to their own side of the Atlantic," Secor said in a statement. "This could be particularly troubling if North American juveniles head to the Mediterranean. High exploitation there might mean that few make it back. Evaluating where Mediterranean juveniles originate should be our next highest priority." The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas meets next month in Morocco to discuss declining tuna stocks and ways to better manage species.