Hawaiian Islands weather details & Aloha paragraphs / October 11-12, 2008

October 11-12 2008

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

Lihue, Kauai – 85
Honolulu, Oahu – 87
Kaneohe, Oahu – 82
Kahului, Maui – 86
Hilo, Hawaii – 83
Kailua-kona – 85

Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon:

Barking Sands, Kauai – 85F 
Kaneohe, Oahu – 79

Haleakala Crater    – 52  (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 39  (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 Saturday afternoon:

0.63 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.11 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.10 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.69 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.33 Honaunau, Big Island

Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing high pressure systems far to the NE and NW. At the same time we find a deep winter-like low far north, with its associated cold front swinging down southward. The high to our NE has a ridge to the north of our islands, which will provide light to moderately strong trade winds Sunday…then south to southeast Monday ahead of a cold front from Kauai and perhaps Oahu.

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

  Looking towards the ocean…from Upcountry Maui
Photo Credit: flickr.com

 

The trade winds will prevail through Sunday, coming our way in the light to moderately strong realms. A 1032 millibar high pressure center is evident on weather maps, far to our northeast Saturday evening. This high has a ridge extending southwest to a point north of Hawaii. Our trade winds will remain active through Sunday. A low pressure system to our north, along with its trough will approach Kauai, as we start off the new week…which will swing our winds around to the southeast or even south. This suggests that there will be periods of volcanic haze carried across the island chain at times. The trade winds will return by mid-week, clearing the islands of vog, with improving air visibilities then.

There is some lower level cloudiness being carried across our islands, in addition to some high cloudiness as well. The bias for showers remains focused over to the windward sides. We’ll find favorably inclined weather circumstances, for the most part, through Sunday. As we proceed into the new week ahead, our weather will take on a more autumnal influence. We’ll find a cold front or a trough stretching down to near Kauai, where showers will increase, which may reach Oahu as well into Tuesday. The rest of the state will have lighter southeast to south winds, with some pre-frontal, or upcountry showers along the leeward sides . The trade winds will return by Wednesday, with showers focused along the windward sides again then.

Hurricane Norbert has moved over mainland Mexico, while tropical storm Odile continues moving just offshore, or very near the mainland Mexico coast. Norbert brought over 100 mph winds to the west coast of Baja, early Saturday morning, and is now passed over the Gulf of California, onto the mainland Mexican coast inland. This soon to be retired storm will bring locally heavy rains to the central and southern Great Plains of the United States over the next couple of days. Here’s a tracking map showing this tropical system, as well as a satellite image of Norbert. ~~~ Meanwhile, tropical storm Odile continues its journey up the southern Mexican coast, before it turns westward into the Pacific Ocean. Here’s a tracking map, and you can see the storm just offshore from Mexico on this satellite image. By the way, none of this tropical cyclone activity will have any influence on our weather here in the north central Pacific.

It’s early Saturday evening here in Kula, Maui, as I begin writing this last section of today’s weather narrative from Hawaii.  We’re looking at a good weekend, with plenty of all the good things that make it that way. Daytime temperatures will feel like summer, there will be lots of sunshine, and just a few showers along the windward sides…mostly at night. We will see patches of high cirrus clouds overhead at times too. As we move into the new week ahead, that good weather will break down, as a cold front, or a trough approaches from the northwest. This frontal system will bring rain to Kauai, and probably to Oahu as well into Tuesday. The other islands won’t likely see the front itself, but will have prefrontal showers arriving at times…some of which may be rather generous locally during the afternoon hours. Thereafter, the trade winds should return, with just the usual windward biased showers during the second half of the week. As noted in one of the paragraphs above, we should see some form of volcanic emissions stretching up from the Big Islands to Maui, or other parts of the island chain as well. 

~~~ I went to see the new film called The Duchess (2008), starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes among others, Friday evening after work. A consensus by the critics says: "While The Duchess treads the now-familiar terrain of the corset-ripper, the costumes look great and Keira Knightley’s performance is stellar in this subtly feminist, period drama." One reviewer said this: "It’s a beautiful period piece that will send you to a bookstore for a better account of the dirt and vice at its core." I must say that I really liked this film, it had some humor, as well as being touching and serious, all in about equal measure. I really appreciate Keira Knightley’s acting talents, and her good looks too. Ralph Fiennes plays her kingly husband, but can’t hold a candle to her talents, in my humble opinion. I usually go to see these guy films, with lots of action and stuff, but The Duchess, is the type of period piece that I can truly appreciate as well. Here’s a trailer for The Duchess.

~~~ I went over to Haiku around noon today, for a haircut. I had some shopping to do at Mana Foods in Paia afterwards, so decided to go to Baldwin Beach for a nice walk and a swim. It was quite sunny, with high clouds, and somewhat gusty trade winds blowing…but nice and warm at the same time. It was nice to be at the beach, I always appreciate that when I make the time for such things. I went shopping, and then came home here to Kula. It’s just before sunset at the moment, so I’ll move out to my weather deck, and witness the somewhat cloudy end of the day. I’ll be back here Sunday morning with your next weather narrative. I hope you have a great Saturday night until then! Aloha for now…Glenn.

Interesting:

A new epoch is beginning at the top of the Earth, where the historic melting of the vast Arctic ice cap is opening a forbidding, beautiful, and neglected swath of the planet. Already, there is talk that potentially huge oil and natural gas deposits lie under the Arctic waters, rendered more accessible by the shrinking of ice cover. Valuable minerals, too. Sea lanes over the top of the world will dramatically cut shipping times and costs. Fisheries and tourism will shift northward. In short, the frozen, fragile north will never be the same.

The Arctic meltdown—an early symptom of global warming linked to the buildup of atmospheric greenhouse gases—heralds tantalizing prospects for the five nations that own the Arctic Ocean coastline: the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, and Denmark (through its possession of Greenland). But this monumental transformation also carries risks quite aside from the climate implications for the planet—risks that include renewed great-power rivalry, pollution, destruction of native Inuit communities and animal habitats, and security breaches. "The world is coming to the Arctic," warns Rob Huebert, a leading Arctic analyst at the University of Calgary. "We are headed for a lot of difficulties."

The vast stakes, along with some political grandstanding, are inspiring predictions that a new great game among nations is afoot—a tense race for the Arctic. That scenario got a shot of drama last year when two Russian mini-submarines made a descent to the seabed beneath the North Pole and planted a titanium Russian flag. The operation lacked any legal standing but symbolized Moscow‘s claims to control the resources inside a mammoth slice of the Arctic, up to the North Pole itself. To calm the mood, the five Arctic coast countries gathered diplomats in Greenland this May to agree that boundary and other disputes would be handled peacefully under existing international law. "We have politically committed ourselves to resolve all differences through negotiation," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Möller said at the time. "The race for the North Pole has been canceled."

Interesting2:

Cleaning air in Beijing and in other large cities suffering from pollution problems by limiting car and power-plant emissions may raise global temperatures instead of lowering them, a German scientist warns. Aerosols, or particles suspended in air, have a cooling effect on the Earth, countering global warming linked to carbon dioxide, said Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research. A drop in aerosols in the atmosphere could cause a "rapid" rise in temperatures, he said. Airborne pollutants act as an umbrella worldwide while CO2 provides insulation, trapping heat attempting to escape into the atmosphere. A rise in temperature because of declines in aerosols in the atmosphere can be offset by slashing CO2 emissions, he said. By not reducing carbon output, humanity "is closing the last door we have through which we can possibly influence the global climate," Schellnhuber said.













Interesting3:

Toxins in food often have a bad, bitter taste that makes people want to spit them out. New UC Irvine research finds that bitterness also slows the digestive process, keeping bad food in the stomach longer and increasing the chances that it will be expelled. This second line of defense in the gut against dietary toxins also triggers the production of a hormone that makes people feel full, presumably to keep them from eating more of the toxic food. This discovery has the potential to help scientists develop better therapies for ailments ranging from cancer to diabetes, and it may explain why certain isolated populations around the world have adapted to eat and enjoy local foods that taste bad to outsiders and make them sick.

The study, appearing online Oct. 9 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, was performed with mice, and the results probably translate to humans, said Timothy Osborne, molecular biology and biochemistry professor and study senior author. "We have evolved mechanisms to combat the ingestion of toxins in our food," Osborne said. "This provides a framework for an entirely new area of research on how our bodies respond to what is present in our diets." Mammals have evolved to dislike the bitter taste of toxins in food. This response is particularly important when they eat a lot of plant material, which tends to contain more bitter-tasting, potentially toxic ingredients than meat.

Interesting4:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, tropical plant and animal species living in some of the warmest places on Earth may be threatened by global warming, according to an article by University of Connecticut Ecologist Robert K. Colwell and colleagues the journal Science. As Earth’s climate has warmed in recent decades, the geographical ranges of well-studied bird, butterfly, and plant species in the US and Europe have moved northward, following the gradual northward shift of their familiar climates. Other studies have shown that species in the US and Europe have shifted to higher elevations, as temperature zones on mountains have moved upward. In contrast, surprisingly little attention has been given to the effects of warming climate on tropical plants and animals.

Colwell’s article in Science magazine this week may change that. The report points out that tropical climates have warmed too (more than 3/4 degrees Centigrade [1.4 degrees Fahrenheit] since 1975), and climate models predict an additional increase of more than 3 degrees Centigrade (nearly 6 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next century in the tropical forests of Central and South America. This much warming would shift temperature zones uphill about 600 m (nearly 2000 feet) in elevation above sea level. Tropical species, like those at higher latitudes, will likely be driven to higher elevations by these changes, following the climate zones they are suited for. Working their way up the forested slopes of a Costa Rican volcano rising nearly 3000 m (10,000 ft) above the coastal plain, Colwell and colleagues have collected data on the altitudinal ranges of nearly 2000 species of plants and insects.

Interesting5:

A small asteroid exploded over Africa this week following what astronomers said was the first firm prediction of an incoming space rock. It did not strike Earth. The asteroid was about the size of kitchen table, astronomers estimated, and they think the explosion (caused by the pressures of slamming into the atmosphere) left nothing but perhaps a few small bits to fall to the surface. No photographs of the explosion have been reported, owing to the remote location of the object’s path over Sudan. But the explosion was recorded by an infrasound array in Kenya. Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario estimated, based on the infrasound data, that the asteroid exploded at 0243 UT with an energy of somewhere between 1.1 and 2.1 kilotons of TNT. On Monday, NASA researchers and other scientists announced that the space rock, named 8TA9D69, would enter the air at 10:46 p.m. ET (0246 UT) on Oct. 7 over northern Sudan. Such events occur a few times every year, but never before had one been predicted.

The object was expected to create a very bright fireball that, for anyone who might have seen it, would have been far more dramatic than the typical shooting star resulting when small debris streaks through Earth’s atmosphere. "A typical meteor comes from an object the size of a grain of sand," Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center explained just before the highly anticipated event. "This meteor will be a real humdinger in comparison!" There has been one visual confirmation of the exploding fireball, according to Spaceweather.com. Jacob Kuiper, a general aviation meteorologist at the National Weather Service in The Netherlands, told pilots to keep an eye out. "I have received confirmation that a KLM airliner, roughly 750 nautical miles southwest of the predicted atmospheric impact position, has observed a short flash just before the expected impact time 0246 UTC," Kuiper said. "Because of the distance it was not a very large phenomenon, but still a confirmation that some bright meteor has been seen in the predicted direction." The rock was discovered by an ongoing survey at Mt.Lemmon run by the University of Arizona as part of the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey for near-Earth objects.