12-13-2011, 04:45 PM
As others have pointed out, the amount of rainfall recently is nowhere near a record amount, but what I think is likely is that over the last few weeks there have been many more rainy days than usual. The clouds and rain do seem almost continuous since the start of November, even for Kaloli Point!
I have a statistic that some might find interesting. It's to do with UKIRT on Mauna Kea. Now of course rain in Hilo/Puna doesn't normally mean fog or bad weather at the summit, but the reverse is often true, i.e., if there's fog or snow at the summit it's likely raining on the windward side. Now, I just looked at the UKIRT stats for the month of November since 2004 (going back further would take a lot of time as those data aren't so easily accessible). For 2004-2010, our average weather loss for November was approximately 34%, i.e., the dome had to be closed or we couldn't observe for 34% of the available time due to bad weather. During the best month (2004) we only lost 19% of the time, the worst was 2007 with 45% (bear in mind our average annual weather loss is approximately 30%).
In November 2011 we lost a whopping 76% to weather. That's a huge spike in the numbers. December appears to be going the same way right now although generally December is not a good month weather-wise.
Sorry for the boring stats, but thought it added to the suggestion that the last few weeks have been a little unusual, at least in recent years.
Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/
I have a statistic that some might find interesting. It's to do with UKIRT on Mauna Kea. Now of course rain in Hilo/Puna doesn't normally mean fog or bad weather at the summit, but the reverse is often true, i.e., if there's fog or snow at the summit it's likely raining on the windward side. Now, I just looked at the UKIRT stats for the month of November since 2004 (going back further would take a lot of time as those data aren't so easily accessible). For 2004-2010, our average weather loss for November was approximately 34%, i.e., the dome had to be closed or we couldn't observe for 34% of the available time due to bad weather. During the best month (2004) we only lost 19% of the time, the worst was 2007 with 45% (bear in mind our average annual weather loss is approximately 30%).
In November 2011 we lost a whopping 76% to weather. That's a huge spike in the numbers. December appears to be going the same way right now although generally December is not a good month weather-wise.
Sorry for the boring stats, but thought it added to the suggestion that the last few weeks have been a little unusual, at least in recent years.
Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/