Hawaiian Islands Satellite Interpretation Message

Hawaiian Islands Satellite Interpretation Message
Sat, 08 Jan 2011 18:30:00 -0600

Based on data through 0000 UTC January 09 2011.

Regional satellite images highlight a nearly stationary, vertically stacked, area of low pressure, centered about 625 miles north- northeast of Oahu. The islands are on the southern periphery of the flow around this low, with west to northwest winds prevailing over the islands and surrounding waters. Scattered to locally broken showery cumulus /cu/ near the islands are moving toward the east and southeast, at speeds between 20 and 25 mph. In addition, scattered to broken cirrus clouds, although rather thin, are moving rapidly southeast over the islands within a strong flow aloft. A drier air mass, with few to scattered cu and stratocumulus /sc/ is located to the west and northwest of the islands, and appears to be headed toward the islands.

The surface low to the north-northeast of the islands also has a reflection aloft, as seen in water vapor imagery, hence the vertically stacked nature of the low. Shortwave troughs rotating around this larger low have been responsible for the formation of showers bands near the islands, in an air mass that might normally be too dry to support shower formation. One such shortwave is supporting an area of layered clouds and embedded thunderstorms over waters east of the islands, between 150°W and 140°W from 10°N to 30°N.

Aside from the high clouds, skies over most island areas are partly cloudy or mostly sunny, with the snow covered Big Island peaks clearly seen on visible imagery. The northwest coast of Kauai has scattered to broken low clouds, with only few sc elsewhere on the island. Showery broken cu are coming ashore oahu's north shore, but the remainder of the island has few to scattered cu. Aside from a few small cu over east Molokai, Lanai and west Maui, the remainder of Maui county is mostly sunny. Most of the Big Island is under sunny skies, except for limited patches of broken cu and sc over the lower windward slopes.

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BIRCHARD

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