EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: The trade winds are being driven by a moderately strong high pressure system far to the northeast of the islands. This high is located well over half way towards the California coast, although it has an associated ridge of high pressure extending west-southwest back to a point around 30 degrees north latitude…to the north of our islands. These moderately strong trade winds will hold steady through the weekend, into the first several days of the new week ahead. There’s a chance that some change in our wind speeds and directions could occur beginning during the second half of next week.
Showers will continue to be drawn over the windward sides of the islands, as showery clouds get carried our way on the trade wind flow. We’ve seen a few showers being carried all the way over into the leeward sides on the smaller islands. The clouds upstream of the islands look fairly normal at this time, so there doesn’t appear to be anything unusual on tap in terms of our precipitation through the next 5-6 days. Towards the second half of the upcoming new work week, around next Thursday or Friday, the models are suggesting that we may see some changes coming our way…stay tuned.
PDC Global Hazards Atlas showing 3 hour rainfall accumulations in the central Pacific
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 moderately strong 1030 millibar high pressure system far to our northeast. Our locally gusty trade winds will continue…with a slight weakening into the weekend.
Trade winds continue…the following numbers represent the strongest gusts (mph), along with directions Friday afternoon:
20 Port Allen, Kauai – NE
27 Waianae, Oahu – NE
25 Molokai – NE
30 Kahoolawe – ESE
31 Kahului, Maui – NE
06 Lanai
28 South 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 Friday afternoon.Looking at this NOAA satellite picture we find low clouds generally offshore of the islands…although they are being carried over the islands locally. At the same time we see considerable high cirrus clouds to our southwest, west and north, which continue to move 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 across much of the state. Checking out this looping radar image we see some showers over the ocean, moving along in the trade wind flow, impacting the windward sides in places.
Here are the 24-hour precipitation totals (inches) for each of the islands as of late Friday morning:
0.44 Omao, Kauai
0.50 Oahu Forest NWR, Oahu
0.04 Molokai
0.00 Lanai
0.01 Kahoolawe
0.69 Oheo Gulch, Maui
0.84 Puu Waawaa, Big Island
Here is the latest NWS rainfall forecast
Here are the latest available satellite images:
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 through Saturday. Surf along the south shores will lower Friday and Saturday. The west shores will find generally small surf both days. The wind swell along the east facing shores will remain small Friday and Saturday.
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 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 Tuesday will bring the surf up even larger then.
South shores – The great south swell will be gradually dropping Friday 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.
