Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Sunday…along with the minimums Monday:
84 – 73 Lihue, Kauai
82 – 71 Honolulu, Oahu
83 – 68 Molokai AP
84 – 71 Kahului, Maui
83 – 78 Kailua Kona
81 – 65 Hilo, Hawaiiii
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Monday morning:
0.16 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.76 Poamoho RG 1, Oahu
0.07 Puu Alii, Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.00 Kahoolawe
0.18 Hana AP, Maui
1.00 Saddle Quarry, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Monday morning:
18 Poipu, Kauai – NE
24 Kuaokala, Oahu – NE
28 Molokai – NE
28 Lanai – NE
30 Kaahoolawe – NE
31 Maalaea Bay, Maui – NNE
33 Waikoloa, Big Island – NE
Hawaii’s Mountains – Here’s a link to the live web cam on the summit of near 13,800 foot Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. This web cam is available during the daylight hours here in the islands…and when there’s a big moon shining down during the night at times. Plus, during the nights you will be able to see stars, and the sunrise and sunset too… depending upon weather conditions.
Aloha Paragraphs
Cold front far to the northwest…with high
cirrus clouds in the area
Clear to partly cloudy, locally cloudy – here’s the
looping version of the satellite photo above
Showers are falling over the nearby ocean…arriving along
the windward sides on the trade wind flow locally
Here’s the looping radar image for the Hawaiian Islands
Small Craft Advisory…strong trade winds across coastal
and channel waters around Maui County and the Big Island
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Trade winds will continue, with minor day-to-day variations in strength through mid-week. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a real-time wind profiler of the central Pacific. We find high pressure systems located to the northwest, north and northeast of the state. As a result of these high pressure features, and low pressure well to the south in the deeper tropics, our winds will continue to come in from the trade wind direction. The models continue showing the trade winds finally backing-down during the second half of this new work week, likely bringing sultry and perhaps hazy weather too…with returning trade winds by the weekend.
Some showers at times…most common during the nights and early morning hours. The windward sides will generally see whatever showers that arrive on the trade wind flow. There will be a few showers carried over into the leeward sides on the smaller islands locally…in addition to localized upcountry afternoon showers. These interior showers will be most prevalent on the Big Island…and possibly the leeward slopes on Maui. As we move through the first half of this new week, a fairly normal trade wind weather pattern will prevail. As we get into the later part of the work week, we’ll see more clouds with afternoon showers, followed by more windward biased showers by the weekend. I’ll be back with more updates on all of the above, I hope you have a great Monday wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
Here on Maui...early Monday morning before sunrise, skies are mostly clear, with just the usual clouds over the West Maui Mountains, and banked-up against the windward sides…with some showers. The air temperature here in Kula at 535am was 49.8 degrees, while the summit of the Haleakala Crater was showing a 45 degree temperature. At the same time, it was a warmer 71 at the Kahului airport, with a 68 degree reading out in Hana.
~~~ Here’s a weather product that I produced for the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) this morning
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
>>> Atlantic Ocean: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
>>> Gulf of Mexico: The last regularly scheduled Tropical Weather Outlook of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season…has occurred. Routine issuance of the Tropical Weather Outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, Special Tropical Weather Outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico.
>>> Eastern Pacific: There are no active tropical cyclones
TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
For the eastern North Pacific…east of 140 degrees west longitude:
Tropical cyclone formation is not expected during the next 5 days.
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: The central north Pacific hurricane season has officially ended. Routine issuance of the tropical weather outlook will resume on June 1, 2015. During the off-season, special tropical weather outlooks will be issued as conditions warrant.
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean: Typhoon 07W (Dolphin) remains active, and will continue to gradually weaken…as it moves over the open ocean. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map…along with a satellite image – looping view – here’s what the GFS computer model is showing
>>> South Pacific Ocean: There are no active tropical cyclones
>>> North and South Indian Oceans: There are no active tropical cyclones
Here’s a link to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
Interesting: Bird populations responding to climate change - With puzzling variability, vast numbers of birds from Canada’s boreal forests migrate hundreds or thousands of miles south from their usual winter range. These so-called irruptions were first noticed by birdwatchers decades ago, but the driving factors have never been fully explained. Now scientists have pinpointed the climate pattern that likely sets the stage for irruptions – a discovery that could make it possible to predict the events more than a year in advance.
The researchers found that persistent shifts in rainfall and temperature drive boom-and-bust cycles in forest seed production, which in turn drive the mass migrations of pine siskins, the most widespread and visible of the irruptive migrants. “It’s a chain reaction from climate to seeds to birds,” says atmospheric scientist Court Strong, an assistant professor at the University of Utah and lead author of the study.
Many seed-eating boreal species are subject to irruptions, including Bohemian and cedar waxwings, boreal chickadees, red and white-winged crossbills, purple finches, pine and evening grosbeaks, red-breasted nuthatches, and common and hoary redpolls. The authors focused on the pine siskin, a species featured prominently in earlier work on irruptive migrations.
Previous studies have found evidence that irruptions are triggered by food shortages caused by the large-scale collapse of seed production in northern pine, spruce and fir forests.
“We’ve known for a long time that weather was probably important, but prior analyses by ecologists have been unable to identify exactly what role weather was playing in this phenomenon,” says ecologist Walt Koenig, a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and co-author of the new study incorporating climate science. “It’s a good example of the value of interdisciplinary work,” Koenig says.
To resolve the question, the scientists turned to a remarkable trove of data gathered by backyard birders as part of Project FeederWatch, a citizen science initiative run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. FeederWatcher volunteers systematically record bird sightings from November through early April and they gave the scientists more than two million observations of pine siskins since 1989. The crowd-sourced data makes it possible to track the movement of bird populations at a continent-wide scale.
“Avid birders across the U.S. and Canada have contributed sustained observations of birds at the same broad geographic scale in which weather and climate have also been observed and understood,” says co-author Julio Betancourt, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia.
Pine siskins breed during summer in Canadian boreal forests, where they rely heavily on tree seeds for food. When seeds are abundant, pine siskins in eastern North America largely stay put in the northern coniferous forests of Canada through the winter. But when seed production is poor, pine siskins and other boreal birds move elsewhere to find overwintering habitat with adequate food. During these irruptive years, the eastern populations of pine siskins forage as far south as the Appalachian Mountains. Western populations show less variability in irruptive movements.
Amateur birdwatchers have recorded dramatic shifts in siskin migrations over the years. The winter ending in 1990, for example, featured a massive “superflight” south of the boreal forest, while during the winter ending in 2004 there was a near absence of boreal pine siskins in the U.S. The winter ending in 2009 saw another big irruption south of the boreal forest, followed by greatly reduced counts the following winter.
In the new study, researchers combined FeederWatch observations with climate data in a statistical analysis. This allowed them to link bird population movements with established patterns of climate variability across North America. As expected, they found that extremely cold winters tend to drive birds south during the irruption year.
More surprisingly, the researchers found a teeter-tottering pattern between the north and south that influences bird migrations two to three years later. When the prevailing weather is wet and cold and unfavorable to seed production in one region, it tends to be warmer and drier and favorable to seed production in the other region.
This climate “dipole” tends to push and pull bird migrations across the continent. The heaviness of seed production in a given year depends on how favorable the climate was during the two or three previous years required to set and ripen seeds. That means that, in principle, it might be possible to predict irruptions up to two years in advance.
The finding also raises a question about the impact of global climate change: could the perturbation by massive carbon dioxide emissions disrupt the coupling between north and south such that unfavorable conditions unfold simultaneously, leaving birds with poor seed supplies everywhere in some years?
The answer is unknown. “The boreal forest is the world’s largest terrestrial biome and is home to more than half of North America’s bird species,” says co-author Benjamin Zuckerberg, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It is likely that these irruptions, driven by climate, are a critical indicator of how climate change will affect northern forests and their dependent species.”