Hawaiian Islands Satellite Interpretation Message
Tue, 01 Feb 2011 18:30:00 -0600
Based on data through 0000 UTC February 02 2011.
Sunny skies prevail over most leeward areas across the island chain this afternoon, except for leeward Big Island, where broken to overcast clouds have developed in response to daytime heating of the slopes. Meanwhile, windward areas are also receiving a fair share of Sun, although cloud cover is scattered to locally broken, except over Kauai, where sunny skies are the rule.
Skies over Kauai have been unusually clear and dry through the day today, with few to scattered small stratocumulus /sc/ clouds over windward waters and windward slopes. Skies over the remainder of the island are clear. Except for a narrow ribbon of broken low clouds along the spine of oahu's Koolau range, Oahu is under mostly sunny skies, with a few small cumulus /cu/ elements over the Waianae mountains. Broken stable low clouds, a combination of sc and cu, are over the windward slopes of east Molokai, with a narrow strip of broken cu along the southwest shoreline as well. Clouds have increased over Lanai since this morning, with scattered sc over the interior slopes. Maui has a typical distribution of low clouds, with scattered to broken cu and sc lining the lower slopes of Haleakala, both windward and leeward, and over the lower windward slopes of the west Maui mountains. The rest of the island, and the island of Kahoolawe, are under sunny skies. Most of the lower slopes of the Big Island are blanketed under broken cu and sc, with cloud cover thickest over the Kau and Kona slopes, where skies had been sunny this morning.
Water vapor imagery shows that an expansive anticyclone aloft, centered far west-southwest of the islands, has remained virtually unchanged since this morning. It is centered near 15°N 160°E, and has a ridge that extends east-northeastward along a line from 14°N 180 to 20°N 168°W to 30°N 155°W. A trough aloft is located just east of the islands, north-south oriented roughly along 150°W, from 8°N to 28°N. The anticyclone is nearly stationary and the trough is progressing slowly toward the east, with the result being a strong northerly flow aloft over the islands. Thin cirrus wisps are moving over Kauai within this flow, but are doing little to block the Sun.
While skies over near shore leeward waters are mostly clear, narrow cloud plumes extend westward from kaena point on Oahu, and extend to leeward waters southwest of Kauai. Over windward waters, small sc are scattered in coverage, and are in greatest concentration over waters east of Oahu and Maui county. Low clouds are moving toward the west at speeds near 15 mph.
BIRCHARD
To change your subscriptions or preferences or stop subscriptions anytime, log in to your User Profile with your e-mail address. For questions or problems with the service, contact support@govdelivery.com.
This service is provided by NOAA’s National Weather Service.
GovDelivery, Inc. (800-439-1420) sending on behalf of NOAA's National Weather Service · 1325 East West Highway · Silver Spring, MD 20910
No comments:
Post a Comment