Hawaiian Islands Satellite Interpretation Message
Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:30:00 -0500
Based on data through 0000 UTC September 15 2010.
High clouds, primarily broken in coverage, continue to blanket skies across Kauai and Oahu, and their adjacent waters, partially obstructing the satellite view of low cloud details. Enough breaks in the high cloud cover exist, especially over waters east of the islands, to see that scattered low clouds continue to stream toward the islands from the east in the low level flow, and to see that low cloud cover over windward waters has decreased since this morning.
Large scale view of the tropical central Pacific shows scattered to broken low stratocumulus /sc/, with embedded showery cumulus /cu/, moving westward in the trade flow from 17°N to 23°N between 160°W and 140°W. Skies are nearly clear to the north of the islands, from 23°N to 30°N between 140°W and 165°W, and low cloud motions help to delineate a east-west ridge axis just north of the islands, approximately along 27°N.
Low clouds near the islands are moving toward the west at speeds near 20 mph, with low cloud coverage primarily scattered at the moment. Despite the decrease in low cloud cover upwind of the islands over the past 6 hours, the lower windward slopes of the Big Island are covered in broken to overcast sc, as are the Kau and Kona slopes. On Maui, broken cu line the lower slopes of Haleakala, and the windward lower slopes of the west Maui mountains, but the remainder of the island is under mostly sunny skies. Broken cu persist over the extreme eastern tip of Molokai, with patches of scattered to broken cu lining the southwest coast of the friendly isle. Broken cu are over the southern half of Lanai, but the northern half, and Kahoolawe, are under mostly sunny skies, aside from a few wispy cirrus elements high above. High clouds are partially obstructing the view of low cloud details over Kauai and Oahu, but it appears that broken cu are along the ridge of both the Koolau and Waianae ranges on Oahu, with only few cu elsewhere over the island. Broken cu are over both the windward and leeward slopes of Kauai, with the leeward slope cloudiness spreading to coastal areas on the west side of the garden isle.
Water vapor imagery reveals a closed low aloft centered about 775 miles northwest of Kauai, near 26°N 172°W, with a northeast to southwest oriented trough associated with the low located along a line from 30°N 165°W to the low center to 15°N 180. The low has been drifting slowly toward the west-southwest over the past 6 to 12 hours. Scattered thunderstorms continue to develop near the core of the low, within 120 miles either side of a line from 27°N 168°W to 21°N 176°W. The high clouds moving over Kauai and Oahu from the southwest are associated with this low and associated trough, with some of this high level moisture originating from the tops of isolated thunderstorms located far southwest of the islands.
Thunderstorm coverage within the near equatorial trade wind convergence zone south of the islands is at a minima, with only isolated thunderstorms from 07°N to 10°N between 140°W and 145°W.
BIRCHARD
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