December 18-19 2008
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Thursday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 78
Honolulu, Oahu – 82
Kaneohe, Oahu – 79
Kahului, Maui – 84
Hilo, Hawaii – 80
Kailua-kona – 81
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon:
Kahului, Maui – 83F
Princeville, Kauai – 73F
Haleakala Crater – 55 (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 Thursday afternoon:
0.78 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.63 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.00 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.07 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.58 South Point, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a low pressure system, which will persist west and northwest of Kauai through the period, while high pressure prevails far northeast of the islands. Although locally strong today, east to southeast winds will be moderate to fresh into the weekend.
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
Aloha Paragraphs
Chance of heavy rains on Kauai and Niihau
Photo Credit: Flikr.com
Our long lasting spell of southeast winds will continue…finally giving way to more normal trade winds early next week. A low pressure system remains in place to the west, with a high pressure center to the east-northeast. This gives us southeast winds, which are strong enough to have triggered a small craft wind advisory in some places around Maui and the Big Island. These winds may carry some volcanic haze up some of the islands at times…from the Big Island. The computer models suggest that once the low pressure system lifts out, starting later Friday into the weekend, our local winds will fade from the southeast, veering around to the trade winds after the weekend.
The persistent area of low pressure to the west Hawaii, may send rain our way soon…impacting Niihau and Kauai. Meanwhile, the southeast wind flow will carry some moisture towards us too, which will find a few showers arriving at times on the other islands. As the trade winds fill in after the weekend, the bias for showers will concentrate over the windward coasts and slopes. The leeward sides will find generally dry conditions, with lots of sunshine during the days then. The GFS model shows a cold front dropping down over the state, from the north around Christmas…more on that over the next couple of days.
It’s early Friday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph. Thursday was generally a nice day, although the threat of heavy rains loomed just to the west of Kauai! Looking at this looping satellite image, we find that large area of rainy clouds close to our state, which may bring localized heavy showers over Kauai soon. Meanwhile, checking out this looping radar image, we see showers approaching Kauai…with some lighter showers being carried in the southeast wind flow elsewhere. ~~~ As I was mentioning this morning, its getting right down to the wire now, with the tv weather show on Kauai, Oahu, and the Big Island, ending tomorrow morning! I’m not too sure what to say quite honestly, after serving up these live broadcast weather programs for almost 18 years. I’m sure I’ll figure out something to say, and then next week, I have the last show ever anywhere, when on Wednesday it will be the last show that Maui, Molokai and Lanai will see. At any rate, fortunately I will continue doing this website well into the future, although for my tv audience, it won’t be the same, I realize that! ~~~ I’m about ready to head out for the drive upcountry to Kula, and looking out the window, I see quite a bit of sunshine beaming down, although at quite a low angle. It should be a nice sunset out there, with the array of high and middle level clouds overhead. I hope you have a great Thursday night, either here in Hawaii, or on the still cold mainland! I’ll be back with your next new weather narrative very early Friday morning. Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Indulging in just one small chocolate truffle can induce cravings for more sugary and fatty foods—and even awaken a desire for high-end status products, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. In a study that examined goals and behavior in consumers, authors Juliano Laran (University of Miami) and Chris Janiszewski (University of Florida) found that study participants who consumed a chocolate truffle desired ice cream, pizza, and potato chips more than people who were told to resist eating a truffle. When participants were allowed eat a truffle, they unconsciously activated a goal of indulgence, the authors explain. Likewise, those who were asked to resist the treat activated health goals. Once people felt their goals were met, they tended to reverse their behaviors.
For example, when people who resisted the truffle were told they did a good job, they indicated that they desired fatty foods more than healthy foods. "Once people feel like they have achieved a certain goal, they tend to pursue the opposing goal. When asked about their behaviors, no participant related their desires to the initial chocolate consumption, indicating the operation of a non-conscious system that guides people’s behaviors," write the authors. Interestingly, truffles served as triggers for more expensive indulgences as well. "A second study again had people eat or resist a chocolate truffle and asked them to indicate how much they desired several products that are symbols of status (a nice shirt, an Apple computer, a fine watch). People who ate the truffle desired the status products significantly more than those who had to resist the truffle," the authors write.
Interesting2: A report released at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 16 provides new insights on the potential for abrupt climate change and the effects it could have on the United States, identifying key concerns that include faster-than-expected loss of sea ice, rising sea levels and a possibly permanent state of drought in the American Southwest. The analysis is one of 21 of its type developed by a number of academic and government agency researchers for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The work incorporates the latest scientific data more than any previous reports, experts say, including the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. While concluding that some projections of the impact of climate change have actually been too conservative – as in the case of glacier and ice sheets that are moving and decaying faster than predicted – others may not pose as immediate a threat as some scenarios had projected, such as the rapid releases of methane or dramatic shifts in the ocean current patterns that help keep Europe warm. "We simulate the future changes with our climate models, but those models have not always incorporated some of our latest data and observations," said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University and a lead author on the report.
"We now have data on glaciers moving faster, ice shelves collapsing and other climate trends emerging that allow us to improve the accuracy of some of our future projections." Some of the changes that now appear both more immediate and more certain, the report concludes, are rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, loss of sea ice that exceeds projections by earlier models, and hydro-climatic changes over North America and the global subtropics that will likely intensify and persist due to future greenhouse warming. "Our report finds that drying is likely to extend poleward into the American West, increasing the likelihood of severe and persistent drought there in the future," Clark said. "If the models are accurate, it appears this has already begun. The possibility that the Southwest may be entering a permanent drought state is not yet widely appreciated." Climate change, experts say, has happened repeatedly in Earth’s history and is generally believed to be very slow and take place over hundreds or thousands of years. However, at times in the past, climate has also changed surprisingly quickly, on the order of decades. "Abrupt climate change presents potential risks for society that are poorly understood," researchers wrote in the report.
Interesting3: The common wisdom is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age marked the beginning of human influence on global climate. But gathering physical evidence, backed by powerful simulations on the world’s most advanced computer climate models, is reshaping that view and lending strong support to the radical idea that human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe. What’s more, according to the same computer simulations, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age, altering a clockwork rhythm of periodic cooling of the planet that extends back more than a million years. "This challenges the paradigm that things began changing with the Industrial Revolution," says Stephen Vavrus, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Climatic Research and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "If you think about even a small rate of increase over a long period of time, it becomes important."
Interesting4: For years, scientists have wondered why only males of the rarely seen family of beaked whales have “tusks,” since they are squid-eaters and in many of the species, these elaborately modified teeth seem to actually interfere with feeding. A newly published study help explain the evolutionary origin of these distinctive “tusks” in beaked whales, a rather mysterious family of whales that live in the deep oceans. Although the tusks are known to be used in competition between males, another purpose seems to be to attract female beaked whales – and to avoid mistakes in choosing a mate. The study, by researchers in Oregon, New Zealand and Australia, is being published this month in the journal Systematic Biology. It describes one of the first examples of “sexual selection” implicated in the radiation of a group of mammals outside ungulates (deer, elk and antelope).
“Beaked whales are among the least known, least understood and, frankly, most bizarre whales in the ocean,” said Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University and a co-author of the article. “Because they live in the deep, they are rarely seen alive and many are described only from specimens found stranded dead on the beach. They are the only cetacean species with tusks and scientists have long wondered why, since their diet primarily is squid and the females are essentially toothless. “It turns out that tusks are largely an ornamental trait that became a driver in species separation,” Baker added. “The tusks help females identify males within their species, which could otherwise be difficult as these species are quite similar to each other in shape and coloration.”
Interesting5: A new study in the Review of Agricultural Economics compares fast food and table service meals at restaurants. Results show that both are larger and have more calories than meals prepared at home, with the typical fast food meal being smaller and having fewer calories than the average meal from a table service restaurant. James K. Binkley of Purdue University used data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals, which is the most recently available large sample of information regarding nutritional intake, to analyze fast food, table service restaurant meals, and meals prepared at home. Fast food was found to be more energy dense than food from a table service restaurant. However, Binkley found that fast food meals tend to be smaller.
Consequently, the typical fast food meal had fewer calories than the average meal from a table service restaurant, whether the diner is an adult, teenager, or child. But, the study found that table service diners are more likely to reduce their food consumption during the rest of the day than are those eating at fast food restaurants, most likely because of the difference in energy density. As a result, fast food may ultimately result in more calories. Perhaps the most surprising result of the study was the finding that fast food had the largest effects for adults, and that children’s caloric intakes were greatest when they ate at table service restaurants. “It is misleading to focus concerns about the nutritional effects of increased food away from home primarily on fast food. All food away from home should be considered,” Binkley concludes.
Interesting6: Good quality extra-virgin olive oil contains health-relevant chemicals, ‘phyto-chemicals’, that can trigger cancer cell death. New research sheds more light on the suspected association between olive oil-rich Mediterranean diets and reductions in breast cancer risk. Javier Menendez from the Catalan Institute of Oncology and Antonio Segura-Carretero from the University of Granada in Spain led a team of researchers who set out to investigate which parts of olive oil were most active against cancer. Menendez said, “Our findings reveal for the first time that all the major complex phenols present in extra-virgin olive oil drastically suppress over-expression of the cancer gene HER2 in human breast cancer cells”. Extra-virgin olive oil is the oil that results from pressing olives without the use of heat or chemical treatments. It contains phyto-chemicals that are otherwise lost in the refining process. Menendez and colleagues separated the oil into fractions and tested these against breast cancer cells in lab experiments. All the fractions containing the major extra-virgin phyto-chemical polyphenols (lignans and secoiridoids) were found to effectively inhibit HER2.
Interesting7: It’s not the kind of wanted ad you see every day: "Couple sought to run lighthouse bed and breakfast on island in San Francisco Bay. "The job includes living quarters on the island and a priceless view of the San Francisco skyline. And the pay isn’t bad: up to 100,000 dollars a year for the shared position. Could this possibly be a dream job? "There’s no perfect job," said Katy Stewart, 32. She should know. For nearly three years she has lived with her husband Elan, two dogs and – for the last 11 months – their son, Drake, on the half-hectare size island. Their job is to maintain the East Brother Light Station and keep its bed and breakfast up and running. "This is a romantic place," Stewart said. "But it’s like running an inn in a place that’s a lot more difficult." Most couples hold the job for two years; the longest stayed for seven.
"We’d probably stay forever, if we had figured out how to get a pizza delivered out here," joked the young mother. "We are glad for the time we had, but we want to leave while we are still happy. There is a lot of isolation." The East Brother Light Station lies on the northern end of San Francisco Bay. Nearly 200 meters from the coast, the location offers a breathtaking panorama view of the city, 10 kilometers away, the Golden Gate Bridge and the southern foothills on the Marin Peninsula. Whales occasionally swim by, seals bark on the rocky beaches and seagulls provide wildly romantic musical accompaniment. However, finding a neighbor to talk to requires a short journey and a bit of effort. A boat has to be hoisted into the sometimes stormy bay with a crane.
The ride to the mainland takes a quarter of an hour, then there is a drive on an old harbor road that’s full of potholes, Stewart said, describing the arduous trip to the nearest town. It’s no wonder that friends hardly every drop by. "One friend came by in three years unannounced," Stewart said. "He arrived in an inflatable kayak and asked, ‘Can I come in for some coffee?’" The 65-hour-a-week job does not leave much time for chatting anyway. Duties include ferrying guests to the island by boat "and all other tasks from chef to maid," according to the job description posted at the East Brother Light Station’s website (www.ebls.org). The inn is open four days a week. Guests receive a four-course evening meal and a full breakfast the next morning. The five rooms in the old Victorian wooden house must be made up and the guests must be led on a tour of the lighthouse, built in 1874.
Visitors pay between 215 and 415 dollars per night, depending on the room and the season, for the unique experience of staying on the island. And there is strict water rationing, baths and showers are not available to guests who stay only one night. Water rationing also applies to the innkeepers. "This is not a job for someone who likes to take long hot showers," Stewart laughingly said. The island’s cistern is often low, especially in years when there’s little rain. Drinking water is brought over from the mainland, where the laundry must be done. The old buildings housing the light and fog signals are still standing, although their operations have been switched over to an automated system. The lighthouse operator position became unnecessary in 1970 and the island was unoccupied for 10 years. But a non-profit association stepped in, restored the tower and opened the bed and breakfast. The income it generates pays for ongoing restoration and maintenance costs of the what has been declared an historical site.
Every 20 seconds the fog horn sounds, but it’s "not nearly as loud as it used to be," said Stewart. She said she doesn’t consciously hear it any more. Earplugs are available for guests with sensitive hearing. "I will miss the sound of the waves and the birds," said Stewart. "But I’m looking forward to going on really long walks." It currently takes just five minutes to walk across the island. A couple who can take over the job by April is sought. Stewart already has received a flood of inquiries. Among the prerequisites are a commercial boat operator’s license and culinary skills. A solid partnership is also useful, said the former film student, speaking from experience. She spent 10 months with her husband on a sail boat before taking the job. Given the isolation of the island, it’s hard to imagine a better preparation than that.
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