Photo Credit: Jason Weingardt
West Kaua'i
Today: Mostly sunny. Highs 81 to 87 near the shore to around 72 above 3000 feet. East winds up to 15 mph.
Tonight: Partly cloudy. Lows 65 to 71 near the shore to around 58 above 3000 feet. Light winds.
Christmas Day: Mostly sunny with isolated showers. Highs 81 to 86 near the shore to around 71 above 3000 feet. East winds up to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
South Kauai
Today: Mostly sunny. Isolated showers in the morning. Highs 77 to 84. East winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Tonight: Partly cloudy with isolated showers. Lows around 69. Northeast winds around 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
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Christmas Day: Mostly sunny with isolated showers. Highs 76 to 84. East winds around 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Kauai Mountains
Today: Partly sunny with scattered showers in the morning, then mostly sunny with isolated showers in the afternoon. Highs 71 to 82 in the valleys to around 64 above 4000 feet. East winds up to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50 percent.
Tonight: Partly cloudy with isolated showers in the evening, then mostly cloudy with scattered showers after midnight. Lows 62 to 67 in the valleys to around 56 above 4000 feet. East winds up to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30 percent.
Christmas Day: Mostly sunny with isolated showers. Highs 71 to 81 in the valleys to around 63 above 4000 feet. East winds up to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
North Kaua'i
Today: Mostly sunny with isolated showers. Highs 75 to 83. Southeast winds up to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Tonight: Partly cloudy with isolated showers. Lows 62 to 70. Southeast winds up to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Christmas Day: Mostly sunny with isolated showers. Highs 75 to 83. Southeast winds up to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
East Kauai
Today: Mostly sunny with isolated showers. Highs 72 to 83. East winds up to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Tonight: Partly cloudy with isolated showers. Lows 63 to 73. Northeast winds up to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Christmas Day: Mostly sunny with isolated showers. Highs 71 to 83. East winds around 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
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Synopsis
A high pressure system passing north of the Hawaiian Islands will keep moderate to breezy trade winds in the forecast today. Winds will veer from the east to southeast direction and weaken into light to moderate levels from Wednesday through Friday. A shallow cold front and upper level disturbance are forecast to move into the islands this weekend. Expect another round of moderate to breezy trade winds as a high builds in behind the dissipating front, enhancing trade wind showers over the typical windward and mountain areas into early next week.
Discussion
The latest satellite imagery this morning continues to show a long band of clouds associated with a dissipating shallow cold front stalled out just north of the state. Moderate to breezy trade winds may bring some of these cloud bands and a few showers into the western islands of Kauai and Oahu later today. Local radar imagery shows only isolated light shower activity across the state.
Looking at the wind forecast for this week, we see a high pressure system located northeast of the state drifting eastward. This system will continue to produce moderate to breezy easterly trade winds over the islands through this afternoon. This high center will slowly drift into the East Pacific, away from the islands, as a cold front approaches the state from the northwest. Wind speeds will decrease and shift directions out of the east to southeast direction from Wednesday through Friday. Lighter large scale winds will allow local scale onshore sea breezes to expand in coverage over each island during this time period. Another migratory high passing north of the state along with a shallow cold front moving into and dissipating over the islands this weekend will bring another round of moderate to breezy trade winds to the Hawaii region from Saturday into early next week.
Weather wise a stable ridge aloft will keep low temperature inversion heights in place in through Friday. Then the weather pattern shifts, as a dissipating cold front will potentially move into and dissipate over the western islands this weekend. An upper level trough moving in with this front will likely enhance trade wind showers on Saturday and Sunday. Global models continue to suggest this trough will deepen into an upper level low and become stationary near the Hawaiian Islands sometime early next week. Forecast confidence on the precise location for this system is low at this time. If this upper level low position does in fact set up near the islands, then the lift from this upper level disturbance will inject instability into the low level cloud field upstream of the island chain; briefly enhancing trade wind shower activity. The highest shower coverage in this scenario would favor windward and mountain areas in the overnight to early morning time period.
Long range operational model solutions continue to show various solutions for an upper level low to develop and hover near the islands early next week. The latest GFS and ECMWF ensemble solutions keep the low center east of the Big Island. Still too early to include much confidence in the forecast details for days 7 and 8. However, there may be a brief window, next week Monday or Tuesday, where some ice and snow may develop over the Big Island summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Stay tuned.
Aviation
Moderate to locally breezy trades will continue today, although winds will be a bit lighter than what was seen yesterday. The trades will ease further tonight as they shift more east- southeasterly resulting in more terrain blockage of the stronger winds. Light showers will favor windward slopes and coasts, with brief MVFR cigs/vsbys possible. VFR conditions will prevail in leeward areas, with the exception of PHNY which will likely see some MVFR cigs during the daytime heating hours.
AIRMET Tango remains in effect for moderate low level turbulence over and downwind of terrain of all islands. Conditions should improve later today.
Marine
Fresh to strong easterly trades continue over the eastern half of the state this morning. Winds have veered slightly out of the southeast over the western half of the state and eased to moderate to locally fresh. The Small Craft Advisory (SCA) has been scaled back to windward Oahu waters and waters east of Oahu through this afternoon due to the combination of strong winds and lingering high seas. Winds and seas are expected to drop below SCA thresholds tonight as winds continue to gradually ease and shift out of the southeasterly. Winds are expected to become light and variable for the western half of the state by Wednesday night into Friday. East to southeast winds will persist over the eastern half of the state and become gentle to moderate Thursday into Friday.
The current northwest swell (310-330) continues to trend down at the offshore and near shore buoys. The High Surf Advisory (HSA) for north and west facing shores has been dropped this morning as the swell continues to trend down at the local buoys. The next large, long period northwest swell (310 degrees) is expected to fill in late Wednesday night, peak Thursday before gradually trending down Friday into the weekend. This second swell is excepted to produce warning- level surf along north and west facing shores, albeit smaller than the event this past weekend. This large swell will also elevate seas to above SCA thresholds as the swell fills in Wednesday night. Surf along east facing shores will briefly become rough and choppy today as trade wind swell has picked up. A downward trend is expected during the second half of the week as winds weaken locally and upstream.
Fire weather
No critical fire weather conditions are expected for the next seven days. Mostly dry weather are forecast across the state with limited shower activity as the dry spell continues through Friday. Shower trends increase starting Friday night with trade wind showers.
HFO Watches/Warnings/Advisories
Small Craft Advisory until 6 PM HST this evening for Oahu Windward Waters, Kaiwi Channel, Maui County Windward Waters, Maui County Leeward Waters, Maalaea Bay, Pailolo Channel, Alenuihaha Channel, Big Island Windward Waters, Big Island Leeward Waters, Big Island Southeast Waters.
Kauai Now Weather is brought to you by Blue Hawaiian Helicopters.
Data Courtesy of NOAA.gov
