Tropical Season Outlook for Puna

[Ino]

I bought the highest house on the hill with the best view so I could watch the weather. I’ve been a weather observer/citizen scientist for more than 50 years. When I’m not fighting helicopter noise I’m watching the weather. I’d much rather just do that! I thought I would share something positive. It’s long.

Tropical Season Outlook

Once again it looks like long range climate models will miss the dramatic effect cool Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) in the North Eastern Central Pacific will have on the tropical storm source region for Hawaii this year. Although forecasts continue to predict an above or average tropical season for the Central Pacific, this is beginning to look unlikely IMHO. These cool SSTs to our East will make it more difficult for tropical systems to form this year;
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomal...6.2017.gif

After the previous busy years we could use a break. All this cool water pushing South in the NE North Pacific has already had quite an impact from ending California’s long term drought ( last Winter’s cool SSTs supported plunging Arctic cold air masses ) to quashing our tropical season this year. Their effect cannot be understated IMO. This particular process is called the North Pacific Gyre;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pacific_Gyre

and this is the real reason why Hawaii is not affected by tropical systems and hurricanes more often. This Gyre brings a lot of cold water South. If you look at the SST analysis for the Eastern Pacific;
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/pac_anal.gif

You’ll notice quite a dip in SST to our East. The process of upwelling along the West Coast and cool water being driven South by trades and the North Pacific Gyre normally keeps our tropical storm source region’s SSTs lower than what they might be and usually we only get a few tropical storms. Hurricanes need SSTs at least 26 C.

This area’s SSTs went from 3-5 degrees C above normal during that fierce year of 2015 (strong El Nino, lots of storms) to 1-3 degrees above normal ( large amount of storms) last year in 2016 to zero to 1 degree C below normal ( low amount of storms) this year;
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/pac_anom.gif

Interesting that warm SST pool to our N/NW/NE is close to a cool pool that’s to it’s North . Look for the TUTT;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_u...ric_trough
to form Low after Low here this Summer/Fall as this is the ideal set-up for a low pressure systems to form.

When you get these different SSTs so close to each other you can also expect wind shear where the boundary areas are. The models are predicting an unusual event here this August in that they are showing a wind shear anomaly of 50kts + coming out of the West. This could knock over tropical storm structures as they do well vertically and not so well when they get knocked over horizontally. This shear will also limit the strength of any tropical system trying to get here from the East- it’s very unusual if this happens as usually temperature differentials are eliminated or greatly reduced by now and wind shear lowers or even disappears in this area- we’ll see what happens;
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cfs-avg®ion=cpac&pkg=ashearMean&runtime=2017062418&fh=1008&xpos=0&ypos=539

If you must fear, fear July/August as here is the number of depression/ tropical storms and hurricanes by the month that have had a notable effect here in Hawaii since 1950. That’s 55 storms in 67 years!
Jan. 1
July 17
Aug. 25
Sept. 8
Oct. 1
Nov. 2
Dec. 1

IMO the direction the Big Island and Puna and Hilo should fear the most would be a cyclone that comes out of the SE. The great storm of 1958;
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/summaries/1958.php

came from such a direction. Current and predicted pressure patterns make this a possibility ( more than usual) this year.

I’m sure we’ll see some tropical activity this year in mid July and August and it’ll be interesting to see how the systems behave in such a hostile environment for tropical cyclones to operate in.

Always be prepared for a natural disaster, it could happen at any time

Jason 3 continues to show Hawaii in the midst of a giant bubble of elevated water levels which is related to the warm SSTs to our NW. These warm SSTs are making a humid effect felt here and are the cause of the record King tides we’re experiencing this past week;
https://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/science/el...atestdata/

If you want to see where storms might develop in the future go here;
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cyclonephase/gfs/fcst/index.html

Red is future- Black is current!

Finally here’s a great web site to track and get details on any storm threat here;
http://www.ral.ucar.edu/hurricanes/realtime/current/

Click on storm of interest

Aloha!

[PaulW]

Thanks Ino, great stuff!

[eigoya]

As always, super interesting, but should I get a water delivery or wait? All my weather apps say rain, but the catchment is super low.....(I'm lower HPP)

[Ino]

As a weather observer I try to avoid forecasting but sometimes I can’t help myself and I do like to help people.

I include links so people can see weather information for themselves and make their own forecast.

We do have cooler air aloft moving this way this weekend and this can be monitored here;
http://tinyurl.com/yb7h933d

The GFS and European models are conflicted as to where the cool air will be so not a sure thing where this upper level layer of cool air will go. But even some cooling aloft in the mid and upper levels in most likely most places is an encouraging development for increasing rain chances here. But these showers could be hit and miss and depend on where the cold air sinks enough to mix it up with the surface layer. This will be where the heavy rain chances will be and will be where the wind is blowing upslope-but this could be almost anywhere on the island which would be great for our parched S/SE/W sides.

Even though windward will get wet, the overall pattern remains that smaller amounts of rainfall will fall because the atmosphere is not in it’s tropical deep moisture column phase yet. These cold air upper level shots keep the deep moisture plumes reduced and at this point are well past climatology norms. IMO the cool SSTs to our NE are responsible.

But it’s coming. At this time except for isolated heavy rain amounts that could fall this weekend, I expect little to moderate amounts until we get our summertime tropical deep moisture column starting in July- right on climatology time!

I’m expecting our first real shot at this kind of deep moisture around 7-15 and 7-22 when tropical waves look like they could pass to our South. Although only a model and not specially accurate- this model does give a good idea of when we can expect wet or dry general areas.

It is also good for detecting rainfall patterns from future tropical systems- If you look closely you can see the downpours to our SE about the middle of July from tropical systems?- Look above the graph for the period you want to know about- as in all models the further you look out the less accurate so try to monitor if you can;
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=cfs-avg®ion=cpac&pkg=apcpna&runtime=2017062712&fh=168&xpos=0&ypos=327

To sum up if you think you can manage your water until the middle of July after what we get this weekend and early next week then hold off. If you’re low after this weekend and early next week then you probably should order it up.

Hilo is running about 20 inches short this year but up here at 1450’ in Mountain View my tanks are almost Full. It has been pretty dry (June driest month here) but these few showers are enough to wet the ground and keep the dust from flying.

[eigoya]

Wow. Thanx for the very informative explanation. Rob should give you your own Puna weather link, "Ask Ino".

[Kapoho Joe]

Great stuff Ino, mahalo!

[Durian Fiend]

[quote]Originally posted by Ino

Although forecasts continue to predict an above or average tropical season for the Central Pacific, this is beginning to look unlikely IMHO.
[quote]

One would be more than enough. https://www.theweathernetwork.com/us/new...pact/84004

[terracore]

Fernanda will be an interesting test storm for the new satellite and computers that went live for this season. Is anybody tracking the forecast with the following reality to see how the new systems measure up?

[Ino]

GOES16 has not been declared operational and is ongoing additional testing- great information here from images that GOES 16 has already caught-with interesting stories;
http://www.goes-r.gov/multimedia/goes-16...agery.html

That said, NOAA/NASA’s academic partners are providing images;
http://rammb-slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-16&sec=full_disk&x=10848&y=10848&z=0&im=12&ts=1&st=0&et=0&speed=130&motion=loop&map=1&lat=0&p%5B0%5D=16&opacity%5B0%5D=1&hidden%5B0%5D=0&pause=0&slider=-1&hide_controls=0&mouse_draw=0&s=rammb-slider

You’ll notice that the position of the satellite is over the Western hemisphere, this will limit how much improvement one can expect to hurricane forecasts here IMO. Surprise!, the decision was made to center it more over the Western hemisphere than the Eastern Hemisphere.

You’re right Durian, one hurricane would be plenty here and if you read my post we are at an increased risk from just such a storm coming out of the SE. Fortunately it appears heavy wind shear and cooler SSTs will weaken this storm on approach.

From an earlier Punaweb post;
“IMO the direction the Big Island and Puna and Hilo should fear the most would be a cyclone that comes out of the SE. The great storm of 1958;
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/summaries/1958.php

came from such a direction. Current and predicted pressure patterns make this a possibility ( more than usual) this year.”

Always be prepared as this one will scare people but by the time it’s able to reach us it should be in a much weakened state (high shear and cooler SSTs) IMHO- but no guarantee and it looks like it will be coming out of the SE so be Alert and prepared!