12-18-2016, 07:27 PM
Mahalo for the report TomK
Now that you have survived a Kona Low
The Kona Low is splitting apart as one center moves SW, another NE and the convection East of us dissipates.
These are very interesting weather complexes. This one was born as cold air plunged South along a frontal boundary to our NW
Some resources for Kona Low research here- wx model resolution is better now than when this paper was written in 2003;
https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/MET/Faculty...r/KonaLow/
The cold air with this storm stayed to our NW and is moving towards the SW. This is very unusual. What usually happens is the cold air plunging is eventually pushed back North by a warm air response- hence the usual SW to NE track for Kona Lows- not this time as the durability of the cold air is remarkeable;
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cyclonephase/gfs/...900/9.html
I checked the historical record and I can’t find anything like this track for this kind of Kona Low. This one was a cold-frontal cyclogenesis cyclone or CFC. All of them usually end up in the Northern reaches ( at least North of us) of the North Pacific. This one will end up West of us.
A great read here about Kona Lows- copy and paste;
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1...2.0.CO%3B2
Kona Lows are notorious here for their unpredictability. The models have really struggled with this one but better than they would have a year ago. . IMO because of cold SSTs currently taking place in the North Central Pacific this cold air was able to make it’s way much further South than when the SSTs are warmer;
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomal...5.2016.gif
History of Kona Lows
In 1980 a Kona low produced one of the lowest barometric readings ever recorded over Hawaiian offshore waters at 975 mb. All airports were closed and up to 20 inches of rain fell. Winds recorded at 110 mph on Mauna Kea About $30 million worth of damage in Hawaii. For comparison our current one got down to 996mb I believe.
Do you remember when lightning from a Kona Low in December 2008 caused the entire power grid on Oahu to shut down creating black out conditions there? This was when the then President-elect, Obama was on Oahu;
http://content.time.com/time/nation/arti...25,00.html
In December 2010, a Kona storm became fully subtropical and eventually became tropical storm Omeka;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Omeka
2010 was a strong La Nina year that led to the lowest number of tropical storms ever recorded in the Pacific and Omeka was the first one that happened that whole year in the Central Pacific and that was in Dec.!
Kona (cut-off) Low’s a weatherman’s woe!
Now that you have survived a Kona Low
The Kona Low is splitting apart as one center moves SW, another NE and the convection East of us dissipates.
These are very interesting weather complexes. This one was born as cold air plunged South along a frontal boundary to our NW
Some resources for Kona Low research here- wx model resolution is better now than when this paper was written in 2003;
https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/MET/Faculty...r/KonaLow/
The cold air with this storm stayed to our NW and is moving towards the SW. This is very unusual. What usually happens is the cold air plunging is eventually pushed back North by a warm air response- hence the usual SW to NE track for Kona Lows- not this time as the durability of the cold air is remarkeable;
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cyclonephase/gfs/...900/9.html
I checked the historical record and I can’t find anything like this track for this kind of Kona Low. This one was a cold-frontal cyclogenesis cyclone or CFC. All of them usually end up in the Northern reaches ( at least North of us) of the North Pacific. This one will end up West of us.
A great read here about Kona Lows- copy and paste;
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1...2.0.CO%3B2
Kona Lows are notorious here for their unpredictability. The models have really struggled with this one but better than they would have a year ago. . IMO because of cold SSTs currently taking place in the North Central Pacific this cold air was able to make it’s way much further South than when the SSTs are warmer;
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomal...5.2016.gif
History of Kona Lows
In 1980 a Kona low produced one of the lowest barometric readings ever recorded over Hawaiian offshore waters at 975 mb. All airports were closed and up to 20 inches of rain fell. Winds recorded at 110 mph on Mauna Kea About $30 million worth of damage in Hawaii. For comparison our current one got down to 996mb I believe.
Do you remember when lightning from a Kona Low in December 2008 caused the entire power grid on Oahu to shut down creating black out conditions there? This was when the then President-elect, Obama was on Oahu;
http://content.time.com/time/nation/arti...25,00.html
In December 2010, a Kona storm became fully subtropical and eventually became tropical storm Omeka;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Omeka
2010 was a strong La Nina year that led to the lowest number of tropical storms ever recorded in the Pacific and Omeka was the first one that happened that whole year in the Central Pacific and that was in Dec.!
Kona (cut-off) Low’s a weatherman’s woe!
They are always bad news for the MK observatories.