Air Temperatures – The following maximum temperatures (F) were recorded across the state of Hawaii Monday…along with the minimums Monday:
86 – 74 Lihue, Kauai
88 – 79 Honolulu, Oahu
86 – 75 Molokai
90 – 73 Kahului AP, Maui – the record for Monday was 94…set back in 2004
90 – 78 Kailua Kona
90 – 72 Hilo, Hawaii – tied the record Monday…set back in 1976
Here are the latest 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands, as of Monday evening:
0.71 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
4.45 Punaluu Stream, Oahu
0.39 Molokai 1, Molokai
1.47 Lanai
0.08 Kahoolawe
1.58 Wailuku, Maui
1.01 Honaunau, Big Island
The following numbers represent the strongest wind gusts (mph)…as of Monday evening:
13 Moloaa Dairy, Kauai – SE
12 Kahuku Trng, Oahu – SE
12 Molokai – SE
13 Lanai – NE
09 Kahoolawe – NE
09 Hana, Maui – NE
16 Kohala Ranch, Big Island – SE
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
Tropical Storm Jimena to the northeast of the islands…
with Hurricane Linda offshore from Mexico
Here’s a wind profile…so we can keep an eye on Jimena
Tropical Storm Jimena continues being sheared by
23-35 mph upper level winds
Thunderstorms offshore to the southwest…
along with Jimena northeast
There are very few showers in our area now
looping radar image
High Surf Advisory…all south shores through 6pm Tuesday
~~~ Hawaii Weather Narrative ~~~
Light breezes will continue to fan the islands…bringing very little relief from the tropical heat. Here’s the latest weather map, showing the Hawaiian Islands, and the rest of the North Pacific Ocean, along with a wind profiler of the central Pacific. We find a large, moderately strong high pressure system far to the northeast of the state. At the same time we see tropical storm Jimena offshore to the northeast of the state. As we move through this week, we’ll see the winds remaining light, as Jimena’s presence over the ocean to the northeast interrupts our more typical trade wind flow. This in turn will keep very muggy conditions for most of the rest of the week. It looks as if we’ll see southeasterly winds filling in as Jimena moves past our area, which of course means possible thick vog. It may take until next Monday or so…before we break back into a classic trade wind weather pattern.
The greatest threat of afternoon downpours…will continue over the interior sections. As the winds remain quite light, there will continue to be a few heavy downpours over the interior sections of the islands…triggered by daytime heating of the islands. The atmosphere will gradually become a bit less shower prone Tuesday into Wednesday. Nonetheless, we’ll remain in a convective weather pattern…with locally heavy afternoon showers in the upcountry areas. We may see an increase in showers later in the week, as the moisture in the wake of Jimena moves over the state, bringing potentially more wet conditions back our way Thursday into the weekend. These showers will concentrate their efforts most effectively during the afternoons…in the upcountry areas.
Tropical Storm 13E (Jimena) remains active well to our northeast…although continues to pose no threat to our islands. This tropical storm is maintaining sustained winds of near 45 mph as of the latest advisory. Here’s a satellite image, and the CPHC graphical track map, and what the computer models are showing. There continues to be an excellent chance that Jimena will stay away from our area, well to the northeast and then north of the state. Looking at the latest track map, it looks like this system will continue moving generally westward, and track by offshore to the north and northwest of Hawaii as a weaker tropical depression later this week.
Swells from Jimena will be on the slow decline over the next couple of days with the swell direction becoming more northerly with time. The high surf warning has been downgraded to an advisory. The current advisory level south swell is running a little higher than model guidance as indicated by the Barbers Point buoy.
Here on Maui…It’s 6am Monday morning and clear to cloudy, depending upon where you are on the island…on this Labor Day Holiday. Looking around a little more now, I can see towering cumulus clouds, or what may be a thunderstorm cell, over the West Maui Mountains…and another well offshore from Wailuku. This is a definite sign of a shower prone atmosphere, with things setting up to be similar to yesterday’s weather. / It’s now 1045am, it has turned partly cloudy in general, although cloudy areas are increasing steadily. The heating of the island this morning, has started onshore flowing sea breezes, which is carrying moisture from the ocean up the slopes of the mountains. This moisture is cooling and condensing and turning into clouds as it rises, which will continue to congregate through the afternoon. These clouds will get darker and darker, and more moisture laden…until they finally let go of your liquid cargo. / Just before noon here in Kula, and the first shower just arrived, with many more lined up I’m pretty sure.
– Late afternoon now, and it has showered off and on, although now at 430pm…it’s backed off for the moment at least.
– Early Monday evening, at least here in Kula, it’s foggy, although the afternoon showers remain turned off…at least at the time of this writing. I understand that down at the beaches, it’s a whole different story, with very nice summer weather conditions.
I’ll be back with many more updates on all of the above and below, I hope you have a great Monday night wherever you’re spending it! Aloha for now…Glenn.
World-wide tropical cyclone activity:
>>> Atlantic Ocean:
Tropical Storm 07L (Grace) remains now active over the Atlantic Ocean, with sustained winds of 40 mph…and is located about 1480 miles east of the Lesser Antilles. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, and a satellite image…and what the computer models are showing
1.) An area of cloudiness and showers located about 300 miles east- southeast of Bermuda is associated with a broad area of low pressure. Environmental conditions are expected to become more conducive for development during the next couple of days while the system remains nearly stationary for the next day or so, and then moves northward at 5 to 10 mph by Wednesday.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…medium…40 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…medium…40 percent
Here’s a satellite image of the Atlantic Ocean
>>> Caribbean Sea: There are no active tropical cyclones
>>> Gulf of Mexico: There are no active tropical cyclones
1.) A weak area of low pressure over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico just to the east of Apalachicola, Florida, is producing disorganized showers and a few thunderstorms. This system will move inland over the Florida Panhandle later this morning, and development is not likely. Locally heavy rainfall should affect portions of northern Florida and southeastern Georgia during the next day or so.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 10 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…low…near 0 percent
Here’s a satellite image of the Caribbean Sea…and the Gulf of Mexico
Here’s the link to the National Hurricane Center (NHC)
>>> Eastern Pacific:
Hurricane 15E (Linda) is now a major category 3 system in the northeast Pacific, with sustained winds of 120 mph…and is located about 280 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, and a satellite image…along with what the computer models are showing.
1.) An area of low pressure is expected to develop several hundred miles south or south-southwest of the Gulf of Tehuantepec later this week. Environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for gradual development of this system while it moves generally west- northwestward at about 10 mph.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…low…near 0 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…medium…40 percent
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:
Tropical Storm 13E (Jimena) remains active in the central Pacific, with sustained winds of 50 mph…and is located about 485 miles northeast of Honolulu, Hawaii. Here’s the NHC graphical track map, and a satellite image. Here’s what the computer models are showing.
Here’s a link to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC)
>>> Northwest Pacific Ocean:
Typhoon 03C (Kilo) remains active now in the western Pacific, with sustained winds of 75 mph, and is located about 258 NM northeast of Minami Tori Shima, Japan. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map, and a satellite image. Here’s what the computer models are showing.
Tropical Storm 18W (Etau) remains active in the western Pacific, with sustained winds of 52 mph, and is located about 256 NM south-southwest of Yokosuka, Japan. Here’s the JTWC graphical track map, and a satellite image. Here’s what the computer models are 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: The Fingerprints of Sea Level Rise – When you fill a sink, the water rises at the same rate to the same height in every corner. That’s not the way it works with our rising seas.
According to the 23-year record of satellite data from NASA and its partners, the sea level is rising a few millimeters a year — a fraction of an inch. If you live on the U.S. East Coast, though, your sea level is rising two or three times faster than average. If you live in Scandinavia, it’s falling. Residents of China’s Yellow River delta are swamped by sea level rise of more than nine inches a year.
These regional differences in sea level change will become even more apparent in the future, as ice sheets melt. For instance, when the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is totally gone, the average global sea level will rise four feet. But the East Coast of the United States will see an additional 14 to 15 inches above that average.
Tides, winds and ocean currents play a role in these regional differences, but an increasingly important mover and shaker is the solid Earth itself. Global warming is not just affecting the surface of our world; it’s making the Earth move under our feet.
Unless a volcano or earthquake is in the news, we tend to think of our home planet as solid rock. But 50 miles below our feet, there’s a layer thousands of miles thick that can flow like a liquid over thousands of years. The tectonic plates of Earth’s crust float on this viscous layer, called the mantle, like a vanilla wafer on a very thick pudding.
If you were to put a strawberry on top of that vanilla wafer, the added weight would make the cookie sink into the pudding. In the same way, heavy weights on Earth’s crust push it down into the mantle, which flows away and bulges out elsewhere. The miles-thick ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have been depressing the crust beneath them for millennia. That weight has a second effect that you won’t see in your dessert: its gravitational pull on the surrounding ocean makes seawater pile up around the coastlines.
These weight-filled dents in the mantle don’t make a permanent scar. When the extra weight lifts, the mantle rebounds. This doesn’t just happen at the majestic pace of mountain ranges crumbling. It happens every day.
“The solid earth can respond very quickly — nearly instantaneously,” said Mark Tamisiea, a scientist at the National Oceanography Center, Liverpool, England, who studies the connection between sea levels and Earth processes. Tamisiea cited the example of solid-Earth tides, which pull the crust outward as much as a foot (30 centimeters) toward the moon as it passes overhead. Similarly, Earth has an instant initial response to glaciers and ice sheets melting, called the elastic response.
Since NASA launched the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin satellites in 2002, scientists have had an extremely precise measurement of the contribution that ice sheets’ loss of mass contributes to changes in gravity and what it is adding to sea level rise. “Because of GRACE, we’ve had a pretty good idea of what’s happening since 2002,” said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, head of NASA’s Sea Level Change Team. “We know how much [of sea level rise] is from Greenland, how much is from Antarctica, how much is from glaciers.”
Because every ice sheet and glacier has a unique location and size, each one creates a pattern of response in the ocean as individual as a fingerprint. “The physics behind understanding these fingerprints is very well understood,” Tamisiea said. “It’s like the tides.” He and Jerry Mitrovica of Harvard University have calculated the fingerprints of East and West Antarctica and Greenland around the globe. “We do each ice sheet individually so we can use the latest GRACE analysis,” Tamisiea explained. “You can sort of add the effects up and see what the result is for any given location.”
As any ice sheet melts, sea levels along coastlines as much as 1,500 miles away will fall as seawater escapes from the reduced gravitational pull and the crust lifts. The escaping seawater flows clear across the equator: the melting of Antarctica affects the U.S. East and West coasts, and Greenland’s disappearance impacts the coastline of Brazil. These regional differences are significant — such as in the case of the East Coast of the United States.
The East Coast is also on the losing end of another important solid-Earth process that affects regional sea levels: post-glacial rebound. After the elastic response to a crustal weight loss, uplift continues more slowly for many millennia. North America is still responding to the massive melt-off at the end of the last ice age 6,000 years ago. The North American tectonic plate wasn’t evenly loaded during that ice age: ice sheets were sitting on what is now Canada and Greenland, while most of today’s United States remained ice free. This ice load pushed the mantle out from under Canada and buoyed up the United States. Today, the U.S. side of the North American plate is sinking like the downhill end of a seesaw as the northern side continues to lift.
Greenland’s uplift from postglacial rebound means the island is gaining mass from below and its bedrock is continuously rising. At the same time, it is losing mass from above as its ice melts. GRACE measures the net result of these opposing processes, not just the result of melting ice alone. A National Science Foundation- and NASA-funded program called the Greenland GPS Network is working to overcome this problem. Led by Michael Bevis of Ohio State University, Columbus, the program is using more than 50 GPS stations in Greenland to measure Greenland’s rise and fall. The network is dense enough, and the instruments record elevation precisely enough, to distinguish the steady, long-term rise caused by postglacial rebound from shorter-term changes in elevation caused by the weight of the winter snows and loss of weight in summer. The goal of the project is to provide a “correction factor” for postglacial rebound that can be applied to measurements by GRACE and succeeding missions so the remainder is an accurate measurement of the loss of mass from melting.
Scientists currently believe ice sheet fingerprints will be the major driver of future regional variations in sea levels. They are working on questions of how these solid-Earth processes interact with other global and local drivers of sea level rise. “We have to understand global and larger-scale regional changes to do localized impact studies,” Tamisiea explained. “In some places, it may very well be that regional processes will be the most important signal. There has to be a continuum of understanding of the global average, regional changes and more localized processes. We’ll need all of those layers to make viable predictions.”