EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: The trade winds remain our major weather element, although the high surf along our leeward beaches have been giving our locally gusty winds a run for their money in this regard. A full bodied 1026 millibar high pressure system remains more or less parked to our north-northeast. This trade wind producing high pressure center will gradually be shifting eastward, and as it does…our local winds will slack-off slightly through the next 4-5 days. The small craft wind advisories, which we’ve in place around Maui County and the Big Island most of this week, have been dropped now, in anticipation of these slightly lighter trades.
In the rain department, there will continue to be those occasional showers. This will as usual, focus their efforts most effectively along our north and east facing windward coasts and slopes. Local radar shows that there have been a few showers sporting medium intensities, although these have remained offshore to the south of the islands. The rather extensive high cirrus clouds of late, continue to spread over the islands. These icy clouds don’t drop rain over our islands, or over the surrounding ocean either, although they certainly dim our sunshine during the days. The up side of this however is the colorful sunrise and sunset colors.
Looking into next week, after finishing off this week in a rather pleasant way, we find some possible changes around next Thursday. The GFS forecast model shows a cold front extending down into the subtropics to our northwest. Then, around the middle of next week a low pressure system forms along the tail-end of this frontal boundary. It’s still too early to know exactly what changes may result in our local weather then, although perhaps a week from today…we could see the possibility of some showers arriving around Friday into the weekend.
PDC Global Hazards Atlas - Hawaiian Islands with 3 hour rainfall accumulations
Click on the following link for the latest NWS advisories and warnings: Wind/Surf/Flood related advisories or warnings
Broad Overview of Hawaii’s Weather
Our trade winds will be locally quite breezy, then mellow out a little into the weekend. Glancing at this weather map, it shows a near 1026 millibar high pressure system to our north-northeast. East and west running ridges extend from the center of this high pressure cell, into the western and eastern Pacific. Our locally gusty trade winds will continue…with a slight weakening into the weekend and next week.
Trade winds continue…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Thursday afternoon:
14 Princeville, Kauai – E
18 Bellows, Oahu – NE
20 Molokai – NE
35 Kahoolawe – SE
25 Kahului, Maui – NE
08 Lanai – S
24 Upolu Point, Big Island – NE
We can use the following links to see what’s going on in our area of the north central Pacific Ocean Thursday afternoon.Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find low clouds generally offshore of the islands…although they are being carried over the islands too. At the same time we see high cirrus clouds to our west and north, which continue to move eastward over the islands on the upper winds. We can use this looping satellite image to see those low clouds moving along in the trade wind flow. There are those high level clouds coming our way from the west, which will mute our daytime sunshine. Checking out this looping radar image we see some showers over the ocean, moving along in the trade wind flow, impacting the windward sides at times.
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of late Thursday morning:
0.89 Mount Waialeale, Kauai
0.63 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.02 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.02 Kahoolawe
0.49 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.22 Kealakekua, Big Island
Here is the latest NWS rainfall forecast
Here are the latest available satellite images:
Big Blue
Hawaii Infrared satellite image
Animated Satellite image of Hawaii region
Latest satellite image – Close-in visible satellite view
Latest radar image – Looping
SURF OUTLOOK: The north shores will find northwest swells holding steady in the small to lower medium range Thursday and Friday. Surf along the south shores will lower Thursday and Friday. The west shores will find generally small surf Thursday and Friday. The wind swell along the east facing shores will remain small or slightly larger Thursday and Friday.
North shores – The northwest swells will keep surfing breaking into the weekend…generally small to medium in size. A new larger northwest swell will arrive early next Tuesday, likely triggering a high surf advisory then for several days.
West shores – The south swell will keep waves breaking along these beaches, although dropping through the rest of this week. The northwest swells will keep coming into the weekend, keeping these beaches breaking. The larger northwest swell starting early next Tuesday will bring the surf up even larger then.
South shores – The great south swell will be dropping Thursday into the weekend.
East shores – As the trade winds remain active, the wind swell waves will keep these beaches in choppy surf….into the weekend.
