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

75 – 69  Lihue, Kauai
85 – 76  Honolulu, Oahu
80 – 72  Molokai
83 – 72  Kahului AP, Maui
83 – 74  Kailua Kona
76 – 71  Hilo AP, Hawaii

Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of Thursday evening:

14.63  Mount Waialeale, Kauai
3.54  Manoa Lyon Arboretum, Oahu
 0.80  Molokai
0.23  Lanai
 0.01  Kahoolawe
4.15  Puu Kukui, Maui
12.42  Saddle Quarry, Big Island

The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph) as of Thursday evening:

28  Port Allen, Kauai
38  Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
29  Molokai
25   Lanai
40  Kahoolawe
27  Kahului AP, Maui
27  PTA Range 17, 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. This webcam is 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://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_west_loop-12.gif
High pressure northwest through northeast…cold front north

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/cpac/ir4.jpg
Deep moisture offshore from the state…especially to the west

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/hi/ir4.jpg
Partly to mostly cloudy

https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/RadarImg/hawaii.gif
Showers mostly windward and mountains…some are heavy
Looping image


High Surf Advisory…for north shores of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui / east shores of Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui and the Big Island / west shores of Kauai

Small Craft Advisory…strong trade winds and rough seas over all coastal and channel waters

Flash Flood Watch…Kauai, Maui and the Big Island

 

~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~

Broad Brush Overview: High pressure north of the state will keep a trade wind flow active through the weekend. An upper level trough will remain in the vicinity of the islands through Saturday, before shifting south of the state Saturday night. Unsettled and wet trade wind weather will continue into the weekend, with improving conditions Sunday and Monday. The trades will weaken Monday, as a cold front approaches from the northwest. The front, along with showers is expected to move southward through the islands Monday night and Tuesday…followed by strong north to northeast winds. Light to moderate trades along with cooler and drier conditions, are expected for the middle of next week.

Details: High pressure to the northeast of the state will slowly weaken, while the area of high pressure northwest of the islands builds eastward well to the north of the state. This will keep an active trade wind flow in place, with trade wind speeds fluctuating some from day to day. The primary influence on our local weather will be low pressure aloft, which will linger over the islands through Saturday, keeping the airmass somewhat unstable. These unstable conditions, combined with deep tropical moisture…should result in an unsettled and wet trade wind pattern…through the early part of the upcoming weekend.

Looking Ahead: Models show a band of showers is expected to accompany the strong cold front, as it shifts southward through the island chain Monday night and Tuesday, with the showers mainly affecting north and northeast facing slopes. Weather conditions should improve markedly Tuesday night and Wednesday, with very little if any shower activity expected statewide. The weather looks to remain nice during the middle and latter part of next week…with abundant sunshine and cool and dry conditions expected across the entire island chain.

Here’s a wind profile of the Pacific Ocean – Closer view of the islands / Here’s the vog forecast animation / Here’s the latest weather map

Marine environment details: Trade winds are forecast to continue across the island chain. Although winds have decreased marginally as a cold front passes by far north of the area, they will remain strong enough, along with high seas due to the wind and a large north swell…to sustain small craft advisory (SCA) criteria.

A high surf advisory (HSA) remains in effect for north facing shores. A new, large north-northwest swell is expected to build and peak. Thus, the HSA will remain in effect for north facing shores through early Friday morning, and west facing shores have also been included. Another large swell from the north-northwest is expected to arrive next Tuesday and Tuesday night, with advisory level surf along north and west facing shores once again, though surf may be somewhat smaller.

For the east facing shores, trade winds have remained strong, keeping wave heights elevated as well. The HSA for those areas will also remain in effect through early Friday morning.

A small south swell is also forecast to arrive Saturday…lingering through Sunday morning.

 https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ff/24/53/ff24531a4f43db75acd8657f4c820ec4.jpg



World-wide Tropical Cyclone activity

>>> Here’s the latest PDC Weather Wall Presentation, covering Tropical Cyclone 03B, Tropical Cyclone 01S, and a tropical disturbance being referred to as Invest 93W

>>> Here’s the latest PDC Weather Wall Presentation…covering the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico


https://icons.wxug.com/data/images/sst_basin/gl_sst_mm.gif


>>> Atlantic Ocean: 

>>> Caribbean Sea: 

>>> Gulf of Mexico: 

Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico

Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has ended. Routine issuance of the NHC Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2017. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant. The PDC will begin issuing its Tropical Cyclone Activity Reports for the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico on June 1st, 2018 as well.

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season was an extremely destructive season, featuring 17 named storms, tying it with 1936 as the fifth-most active season since records began in 1851, and the most since 2012. The season also the highest number of major hurricanes since the 2005 season. All ten of the season’s hurricanes occurred in a row, the greatest number of consecutive hurricanes in the satellite era. In addition, it was by far the costliest season on record, with a preliminary total of over $368.66 billion (USD) in damages, which is more than double the cost of 2005’s total, and nearly all of which was due to three of the season’s major hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, and Maria. This season is also one of only six years on record to feature multiple Category 5 hurricanes, and only the second to feature two hurricanes making landfall at that intensity.

>>> Eastern Pacific: 

Here’s a wide satellite image that covers the entire area between Mexico, out through the central Pacific…to the International Dateline.

Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)

>>> Central Pacific: 

Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)

The 2017 Eastern Pacific hurricane season has ended. Routine issuance of the NHC Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on May 15, 2018 for the Eastern Pacific. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant. The PDC will begin issuing its Tropical Cyclone Activity Reports for the Eastern Pacific on the 15th of May, 2018.

The 2017 Pacific hurricane season was a fairly active Pacific hurricane season, featuring eighteen named storms, nine hurricanes, and four intense hurricanes. The season officially started on May 15 in the eastern Pacific, and on June 1 in the central Pacific…they both ended on November 30. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the basin. However, the formation of tropical cyclones is possible at any time of the year. This was demonstrated when the first storm, Tropical Storm Adrian, was named on May 10, and became the earliest-known tropical storm in the East Pacific since the advent of satellite imagery. For the third year in a row, the season featured above average activity in July, however, the season was the first to see no tropical cyclones form in the Central Pacific basin since 2012.

>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean: No active tropical cyclones

>>> South Pacific Ocean: No active tropical cyclones

>>> North and South Indian Oceans / Arabian Sea:

Tropical Cyclone 03B (Ockhi) remains active, here’s a track map, satellite image…and what the computer models are showing

Tropical Cyclone 01S (Dahlia) is now active, here’s a track map, satellite image…and what the computer models are showing


Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)


Interesting: Climate Connection: Unraveling the Surprising Ecology of Dust – High in the snowfields atop the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, things are not as pristine as they used to be. Dust from the desert Southwest is sailing into the Rockies in increasing quantities and settling onto the snow that covers the peaks, often streaking the white surface with shades of red and brown.

The amount of dust that settles on snow varies from year to year. From 2005 to 2008, about five times as much dust fell on the Rockies as during the 1800s, and those years are characterized by researchers as moderately dusty, according to a recent study. In 2009 and 2010, however, the Rockies saw an extreme dust scenario, with the amount of dust blowing onto the mountains mushrooming to five times more than those moderate years. The cause, scientists say, was increasing drought — linked to a warming climate — and human development.

Because darker, dust-flecked snow absorbs more solar energy and warms faster than pure white snow, it means snow cover melts earlier — a lot earlier. “It’s not subtle at all,” said Jeff Deems, a research scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. “There is 30 to 60 days difference in the melt out. Over a larger watershed, it’s massive.”

With the snow disappearing earlier and the growing season significantly extended, plants consume more water and transpire it into the atmosphere. That is water that would otherwise go into streams but is now lost, and Deems says this translates into 5 percent less water flowing into the Colorado River in dusty years, a significant amount. The more rapid rate of snowmelt also has a cascade of effects, with the darker, bare ground absorbing more heat and warming the atmosphere.

The same phenomenon is happening in other mountain ranges across the globe, most notably the Himalayas and the Caucasus Mountains, where grazing, desertification, and development are taking place upwind of glaciers and snow-covered terrain, increasing the deposition of dust on those surfaces.

The major impacts of a warming climate are well known: hotter temperatures, more — and more intense — storms, melting glaciers and sea ice, drier climates in many regions and wetter weather in others. But some researchers say one major element of climate change is being overlooked: dust. Dust plays a fundamental role in the world’s ecological processes, and the dynamics of dust are changing as the climate changes.

Although the issue is poorly studied, it’s clear that dust dynamics are shifting in two main ways. Humans are the main cause of an increasing amount of dust in the atmosphere. As farming, grazing, and other development in places such as the Horn of Africa or the U.S. Southwest spread deeper into arid regions, vegetation is destroyed, exposing the soil to wind erosion. In addition, increasing drought due to a warming climate is a major cause of the dust problem, as it kills vegetation and uncaps the soil, allowing it to become windborne.

This has both positive and negative effects. More dust, for example, means more nutrients and minerals, such as iron, are being transported long distances, which stimulates the growth of oceanic plankton — an essential link in the marine food chain. But increasing quantities of dust could cause serious problems for parts of the world, from decreased water flow in some mountain regions to increased human exposure to dust-borne pathogens, a growing health concern.

In the United States, the 2017 National Climate Assessment found that warmer temperatures are reducing soil moisture in parts of the West, and also predicts more drought in the coming years. These factors kill vegetation that keeps soil in place and have already led to more dust storms. And winds that blow in from the Pacific Ocean are increasing as ocean temperatures heat up. That, in turn, draws in drier north winds that suck moisture out of the soil in the southwestern U.S. The frequency of dust storms there has more than doubled since the 1990s — from 20 per year to 48 in the 2000s — and will likely continue to increase, according to one study.

On the other side of the world, weather patterns in some regions have shifted in a different way. Rainfall in the Sahara has increased because of warmer ocean temperatures, which has meant less dust blowing westward across the Atlantic Ocean. Dust storms have also declined in the deserts of China and South America and are projected to be lower in the Great Plains of the U.S. — all because of an increase in precipitation that stimulates plant growth, which caps the soil.

Peripatetic dust is an ancient and vital geological phenomenon because dust carries nutrients that regulate the distribution of life across the planet. A recent study found that dust from the Gobi Desert — one of the world’s two major sources of dust, along with the Sahara — has long ridden the jet stream and settled in the Sierras in California, where it provides an essential source of life-giving phosphorous for the giant sequoias and other trees in that phosphorous-limited ecosystem. The study found that dust provides even more phosphorous than the other major source — the weathering of bedrock in the mountains.

“Dust is a connector of ecosystems around the world,” said Emma Aronson, a plant pathologist and microbiologist at the University of California at Riverside and a co-author of the study.

Nutrient-rich dust is critical, as well, in the oceans. “Dust depositions deliver nutrients that are in very, very scarce supply,” said Jason Neff, a professor of environmental biogeochemistry at the University of Colorado. “Iron, phosphorous, nitrogen, carbon, and other micronutrients in the open ocean lead to higher marine productivity.” A case in point: A massive 2009 dust storm in Australia called Red Dawn (the largest loss of soil in history there), followed by another large dust storm, caused a huge spike in the growth of phytoplankton in the Tasman Sea because of high levels of iron in the wind-blown soil. Such phytoplankton blooms can pull substantial amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as the marine algae photosynthesize.

Dust clouds and the aerosol particles they contain have major impacts on climate in other ways, such as the blocking of sunlight headed for Earth. But this field of research is young and complex, and the science is lacking, adding uncertainty to future climate models. “The way that aerosols affect climate depends on their size, their color, their height in the atmosphere, how they interact with water vapor,” said Neff. “Aerosols are a tough area, because they can warm or they can cool depending on their composition and their location.”

One proven impact from an increase in dust is on human health. In the U.S., an increase in dust storms is leading to many more cases of Valley fever, a fungus that lives in desert soils, becomes airborne as dust, and is then inhaled. The number of cases of Valley fever has increased dramatically in Arizona and California in recent years. In 2000, California and Arizona reported a total 2,757 cases of Valley fever. That number rose to 22,164 in 2011 following several extremely dusty years. The two states reported 11,459 Valley fever cases last year, with 57 fatalities occurring in Arizona. This sharp rise is due not only to increased wind and drought, but to increasing development, including the construction of utility-scale solar energy projects.

“At all of these solar ranches being put in out there, especially in the Mojave, there are huge areas being graded, all the vegetation is removed, and they keep it graded because they don’t want the vegetation to interfere with these solar panels,” said Antje Lauer, a microbial ecologist at California State University in Bakersfield who studies the disease. Changing patterns of drought and rain also favor the spores that cause Valley fever. Military training grounds in Texas and California create dust clouds so big they are visible from satellites.

In Japan, cases of Kawasaki disease — a rare malady that, among other things, causes inflammation of blood vessels, particularly coronary arteries — have been increasing. The bacteria or virus (no one is sure) can travel in events known as Yellow Dust — storms that blow in from the Gobi Desert.

Dust-filled winds that blow across a swath of central Africa during the dry season, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, create something called the meningitis belt, so called because of the rash of outbreaks of the bacterial disease there.

In the U.S., Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona are ground zero for giant haboobs — an Arabic term for dust storms — stirred by intense winds from thunderstorms that can be a mile high and engulf entire cities. Phoenix gets an average of three per year. Haboobs are the third-most dangerous type of weather in Arizona — after extreme temperatures and flash flooding — because they rise suddenly and without warning, greatly reducing visibility and causing traffic accidents. They also carry disease, bacteria, fecal matter from stockyards, herbicides, and pesticides and other pollutants harmful to human health.

The role that dust plays in the earth’s natural systems is only now coming into sharper focus as humanity’s impact on the planet intensifies. As researcher Aronson’s team put it in their study of Gobi Desert dust wafting over to California’s Sierras, “quantifying the importance of dust … is crucial for predicting how ecosystems will respond to global warming and greater use of the land.”