December 23-24 2008
Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures were recorded across the state of Hawaii Tuesday afternoon:
Lihue, Kauai – 76
Honolulu, Oahu – 81
Kaneohe, Oahu – 79
Kahului, Maui – 81
Hilo, Hawaii – 78
Kailua-kona – 80
Air Temperatures ranged between these warmest and coolest spots near sea level, and on the highest mountains…at 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon:
Kawaihae, Big Island – 82F
Molokai airport – 75F
Haleakala Crater – 48 (near 10,000 feet on Maui)
Mauna Kea summit – 32 (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 Tuesday afternoon:
1.42 Mount Waialaele, Kauai
0.38 Poamoho 2, Oahu
0.04 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.49 West Wailuaiki, Maui
0.09 Pahoa, Big Island
Weather Chart – Here’s the latest (automatically updated) weather map showing a strong 1038 millibar high pressure system to far to the north of the Hawaiian Islands. This trade wind producing high pressure system will cause locally strong and gusty trade winds through Christmas Day.
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
A nice beach on the windward side of Oahu
Photo Credit: Flikr.com
We’ll find strong and gusty trade winds as we move into the Christmas holiday…calming back down this weekend. A new moderately strong high pressure system is moving into the area north of Hawaii now. This has increased our local wind speeds a couple of notches. We find a small craft wind advisory active now between Oahu and Molokai, plus around Maui and the Big Island…which may be expanded towards Kauai with time. Meanwhile, the winds will be gusty atop the summits of Maui and the Big Island to, where a wind advisory is now in effect…gusting to near 50 mph in the extreme. The gusty trade winds will persist through Friday, then give way to lighter winds this weekend, into early next week, as a trough of low pressure gets closest to the islands.
Besides the gusty trade winds, and an increase in windward biased showers, our weather will remain pretty good for the time being. As the trade winds increase, we’ll see showery clouds being carried our way, bringing an increase in rainfall along our windward sides. Then, an upper level low pressure system, now to our east, will be approaching. This low will enhance the incoming showers, which may spread over into some leeward areas eventually. The latest model runs show the area of low pressure getting closest to our islands Friday. This will begin the process of our winds calming down. We may find localized heavy showers then too, with a possible thunderstorm forming over and around the Big Island.
It’s early Tuesday evening here in Kihei, Maui, as I start writing this last paragraph. As noted above, we’re moving into a windy Christmas holiday. The winds will become rather blustery soon, lasting through Christmas Day into Friday. All this wind will carry in a more substantial amount of showers along our north and east facing windward coasts and slopes over the next couple of days. Then, a little later in the week, from about Friday into the weekend, an upper level low pressure system will arrive near the Big Island, helping to wring-out addition showers. These showers may end up being quite heavy around the Big Island, with a good chance of snowy conditions atop the summits there. This coming weekend will find lighter winds, with still the chance of showers around. The latest computer forecast models suggest that our winds will veer around to the southeast early next week, ahead of a possible cold front approaching from the northwest then. ~~~ On another note, Wednesday will be the last day, the very last day, for my TV weather show on cable television. It’s rather an emotional time, letting go of something that has been so fun, and if I may say so, entertaining for the last near 18 years! ~~~ Looking out the window here in Kihei, before I take the drive home to Kula, it’s mostly clear out there. It’s a very pretty end of the day, and as been my habit lately, I get out for an evening walk. This makes for two walks per day, which is doubly healthy, and more than that, feels good! ~~~ I’ll be back very early Wednesday morning, which of course is Christmas Eve morning. Oh my gosh, it’s going to finally be here, after all this long wait, since about Halloween, when I began anticipating this major holiday. I hope you have a great Tuesday night, and if you find yourself up early on Wednesday, check out that fabulous crescent moon. Aloha for now…Glenn.
Interesting: Shin Abe doesn’t find it odd that the picturesque little Japanese town of Kuzumaki, where he has lived all his life, generates some of its electricity with cow dung. Nor is the 15-year-old middle school student blown away by the vista of a dozen wind turbines spinning atop the forested peak of nearby Mt. Kamisodegawa. And it’s old news to Abe that his school gets 25% of its power from an array of 420 solar panels located near the campus. "That’s the way it’s been," he shrugs. "It’s natural." To Abe, it is. But the blase teen has grown up in an alternative universe — one that might be envisioned by Al Gore. That’s because Kuzumaki (population 8,000) has over the past decade transformed itself into a living laboratory for the development of sustainable and diversified energy sources.
"When I was growing up, all we had [to generate power] was oil," says Kazunori Fukasawaguchi, a Kuzumaki native who now serves in local government. "I never imagined this kind of change." In resource-poor Japan, which imports 90% of its fuel, Kuzumaki is a marvel of energy self-sufficiency. Signs of the town’s comprehensive focus on environmental sustainability are visible from its mountaintops to the pens of the dairy cows that once were the bedrock of local commerce. Atop Mt. Kamisodegawa, the 12 wind turbines, each 305 feet tall, have the capacity to convert mountain gusts into 21,000 KW of electricity — more than enough to meet the needs of the town’s residents. The excess is sold to neighboring communities.
Interesting2: Inhabitants of the tropics can expect to see more severe storms if sea-surface temperatures in the region continue to rise as Earth’s climate changes. The growth of “thunderheads” — the massive and extremely tall clouds that generate the most severe thunderstorms — is driven by the rise of warm, moist air. A NASA satellite designed to monitor such deep convective clouds detects about 6,000 of them each day, says George Aumann, a climate scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He and JPL colleague Joao Teixeira have analyzed five years’ worth of data from the satellite. They reported December 19 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union that such rainfall-producing clouds are more frequent over areas where ocean temperatures are warm — a finding that bolsters a previous study that showed an increase in global rainfall as climate has warmed in recent decades.
Interesting3: President-elect Barack Obama’s new "green dream team" is committed to battling climate change and ready to push for big policy reforms, in stark contrast with the Bush administration, environmental advocates said on Monday. "If this team can’t advance strong national policy on global warming, then no one can," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to Obama’s picks for the top energy and environment jobs in his administration, which takes office on January 20. "This caliber of scientists in any administration would be a major headline," Knobloch said by telephone on Monday. "But in contrast to the eight years of the Bush administration, where political appointees ran roughshod over science at a terrible cost to the truth, they stand out even more." Last week, Obama picked a Nobel physics laureate, Stephen Chu, to head the Energy Department; former environmental lawyer and U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar as Interior secretary; former New Jersey environment chief Lisa Jackson to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor of Los Angeles, to run the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The president-elect tapped Carol Browner, who headed the Clinton administration’s EPA, to take a new White House position coordinating policy on energy, environment and climate change. For White House science adviser, Obama chose John Holdren, a Harvard University expert on climate change. For the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which deals with weather and climate among other matters, Obama named Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist who has been sharply critical of that agency for allowing overfishing.
Interesting4: A study headed by researchers from the University of Barcelona (UB) shows that caffeine has a greater effect on men than women, and that these effects start just 10 minutes after it is drunk. In addition, contrary to what was previously thought, it has also been shown that decaffeinated coffee also produces an increased state of alertness. “Numerous studies have demonstrated the stimulant effects of caffeine, but none of these have looked at their effects in terms of the consumer’s gender,” Ana Adan, lead author of the study and a researcher in the Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology Department of the UB, tells SINC. Research into the effects of caffeine tends to be carried out using preparations in which the caffeine level is much higher than normal intake. According to Adan, the novelty of this study lies in “the difference seen in the effects on men and women, based on the quantities of caffeine people take in 99% of cases (espresso coffee and decaffeinated espresso coffee, containing 100mg and 5mg of caffeine, respectively)”. In order to measure the effects, the scientists used a sample of 668 university students (238 male and 450 female) with an average age of 22 years.
Measurements were taken before and after the caffeine was ingested (10, 20 and 30 minutes) and were carried out at mid-day (11am to 1pm) and in the afternoon (4pm to 6pm), to act as a control in case of possible differences caused by the time. “Although both the men and women saw an improvement in their activity levels with the coffee, which increased in later measurements, we observed a greater impact among the males,” the Catalan researcher tells SINC. When the decaffeinated version was introduced into the study, the authors also found a small subjective improvement in the participants’ state of alertness, which did not rise so strikingly in the later measurements. “Although we can’t say it is a placebo, we did note an effect resulting from drinking a decaffeinated coffee (at a quantity insufficient to actually affect mood),” adds Adan. The results showed a small impact among both men and women who drank the decaffeinated coffee, although this time the effect was slightly more noticeable among the women. The effect of decaffeinated drinks on alertness had not been previously studied.
Interesting5: Honeybees are important to plants for reasons that go beyond pollination, according to a new study published in the December 23rd issue of Current Biology. The insects’ buzz also defends plants against the caterpillars that would otherwise munch on them undisturbed. The researchers, led by Jürgen Tautz of Biozentrum Universität Würzburg, Germany, earlier found that many caterpillars possess fine sensory hairs on the front portions of their bodies that enable them to detect air vibrations, such as the sound of an approaching predatory wasp or honeybee. "These sensory hairs are not fine-tuned," Tautz said. "Therefore, caterpillars cannot distinguish between hunting wasps and harmless bees." If an "unidentified flying object" approaches, generating air vibrations in the proper range, caterpillars stop moving or drop from the plant.
If caterpillars are constantly stressed by buzzing bees, as they likely are in fruiting trees heavily laden with blossoms, they will feed a lot less, he said. In the study, the researchers found that bell pepper plants without fruit suffered 60 to almost 70 percent less damage to their leaves when confined in a tent with bees and caterpillars in comparison to those in a tent with caterpillars alone. The amount of leaf damage was less on fruit-bearing plants as the beet armyworm caterpillars moved into the maturing peppers, they report. "Our findings indicate for the first time that visiting honeybees provide plants with a totally unexpected advantage," the researchers said. "They not only transport pollen from flower to flower, but in addition also reduce plant destruction by herbivores."
Interesting6: Canada has been blanketed in snow from coast to coast after severe winter storms hit transport and left tens of thousands of homes without electricity. Strong winds and snowfall have hampered relief efforts, with meteorologists forecasting more bad weather to come. Storm warnings have been issued for coastal areas of Nova Scotia and Vancouver, Quebec and Ontario were also braced for more wintry weather. Weathermen say Canada may see its first countrywide white Christmas since 1971. Several areas in the US have also been settling in from an extended cold snap, with storm warnings in place across a number of states after a weekend of hurricane-force winds and heavy snowfall. Meteorologists with Environment Canada have issued snowfall warnings across the country.
In eastern Canada, Nova Scotia Power reported that tens of thousands of customers were without electricity, with more snow forecast to fall. "It’s a widespread and severe winter storm and it’s not over yet, with these high winds expected to continue for some time," a Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman told the Canadian Press news agency. Some ferry services to the south-eastern province have been cancelled, while cross-country rail networks have also been affected. Several bridges, ferries and parts of the Trans-Canada Highway were closed to traffic. Air travel delays have been reported in Toronto and Charlottetown, while flights were cancelled at Fredericton Airport in the south-east after it was covered in more than 1ft of snow. Sub-zero temperatures also gripped parts of British Columbia as meteorologists warned of blizzards up and down Canada’s west coast. In the north-western territory of Yukon the temperature reportedly dropped as low as -49F.
Interesting7: Evidence that a massive meteorite shower had an impact on Earth on a global scale 470 million years ago have been found on a Highlands beach. Researchers from the University of Aberdeen (England) uncovered tiny remnants of meteorites, smaller than a grain of sand, within rocks in Sutherland. The find is linked to others made in China, the US and Australia. The scientists think the meteorites – a result of a collision in space – triggered earthquakes and tsunamis. The university said the find near Durness confirmed previous scientific speculation that the meteorite shower – which followed a "catastrophic event" in an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter – was so vast in size that it affected locations across the globe. The study, led by Professor John Parnell from the School of Geosciences at the University of Aberdeen and published in Nature Geoscience, found the Sutherland meteorites were linked to those found elsewhere in the world.
Prof. Parnell said these findings would help scientists to investigate further if there was any connection between the meteorites falling and changes to underwater species which took place around the same period of time. He said: "We tested the piece of rock in Durness by dissolving the limestone in acid which allowed us to detect meteorites, smaller than can be seen by the naked eye. "This confirmed that 470 million years ago these enormous meteorites fell in a wide span of locations across the globe – including Scotland. "This is the first time we have been able to prove the mammoth scale of the event and just how many geographical locations felt its impact." The scientist added: "Our research has also pinpointed that the meteorites falling caused earthquakes and tidal waves to take place at the edge of many continents. "Records show that the underwater life which existed on earth at this time became a lot more diverse directly after this major event. Any connection between these occurrences is not clear, but our findings will help us to investigate and potentially pinpoint how it happened."
Interesting8: The world’s population on New Year’s Day is set to reach 6.75 billion, a German group that encourages birth control said Tuesday. The World Population Foundation of Germany said the planet’s human population rose by 82 million this year. Its best estimate from its own data was that world population on January 1 would reach 6,751,643,600. The Hanover-based group said almost all the growth in numbers was in developing nations, where women faced multiple pregnancies whether they wanted them or not because contraception was not available. Resources, education and health care were in short supply in those nations because of rising population, the foundation said. A child born today in Germany can expect to live 79 years on average, but an African can only expect 54 years. "If we want to tackle poverty at the source, we have to help women avoid unwanted pregnancy," said Renate Baehr, the secretary of the foundation. "We have to spend more on sex education and contraception."
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