Cool air and cool land mass on Island Of Hawaii sucks the heat energy out of Iselle.
Story submitted by reader “upcountrywater” who lives in Hawaii.
I live on Maui in Kula and the storm is now 8 hours late…
(satellite and radar images below shows disorganization of Iselle)
Satellite IR loop, watch it go pllbbbtt!
Radar image, shows scattered rain.
Source: http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/pages/radar.php
The big Island of Hawaii is a place where hurricanes come to die.
![hawaii_hurricane_history[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/hawaii_hurricane_history1.jpg)
No where else on Earth are there mountains that rise from sea level to above 13,000′ in just a few miles, situated in the path of hurricanes . As one gains in elevation the air temperature drops.
The big isle is just over 4,000 sq. mi in area, and most of that land area is above 3,000′ .
![contour_rift_zones[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/contour_rift_zones1.jpg)
Checking the topographic map, a large quantity of land area is above 5,000′.
As the warm circulating air mass of a hurricane closes in on the island, the warm moist air is replaced with cool dry air. Not only is the air cool at that elevation, the ground is also cool. The heat energy of the storm is being transferred to the chilly ground, delivering massive energy losses to the storm.
Additionally the mountains themselves act as a wind blocker resisting the hurricane circular air flow, and also slows the speed of the traveling storm. Of course the size of a hurricane needs to be taken into consideration, Iselle was a small cat 1 hurricane.
I live on Maui at the 3,200′ in an area called Kula, I’m about 6 miles away from the Polipoli Springs State Park, and the Skyline Ridge Trail which is on a ridge of Haleakala at the 7,000′ level there is a strong wind blowing in the trees, I can hear the faint howling, it sounds like a weak jet engine…I’ve heard that sound before, in the winter during a big trade wind storms.
6:00 AM in Kula it’s dead calm no rain, the clouds are moving in several directions at the same time, dark clouds are forming to the east and south of my location. A beautiful morning and I can’t stop looking at the dancing clouds.
This storm is now a rain event, some thunderstorms here and there..
All airports in the state are now open.
Aloha.
==============================================================
Some additional info collected by Anthony for this story.
Observations: http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/PHTO.html
Latest advisory from CPHC
Tropical Storm ISELLE Advisory Number 34
Issued at 500 AM HST FRI AUG 08 2014
SUMMARY OF 500 AM HST…1500 UTC…INFORMATION
———————————————-
Location: 19.3N 156.1W
ABOUT 70 MI…115 KM WSW OF HILO HAWAII
ABOUT 180 MI…290 KM SE OF HONOLULU HAWAII
Maximum sustained winds: 50 MPH…85 KM/H
Present movement: WNW or 290 degrees AT 13 MPH…20 KM/H
Minimum central pressure: 1003 MB…29.62 INCHES
WATCHES AND WARNINGS
——————–
CHANGES IN WATCHES AND WARNINGS WITH THIS ADVISORY…
THE HURRICANE WARNING HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED FOR HAWAII COUNTY. A
TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS NOW IN EFFECT FOR HAWAII COUNTY.
=========================================================
Latest from NWS:
URGENT - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED TROPICAL STORM ISELLE LOCAL STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HONOLULU HI 326 AM HST FRI AUG 8 2014 ...THE CENTER OF WEAKENING ISELLE HAS MOVED ASHORE NEAR PAHALA... .NEW INFORMATION... UPDATED STORM POSITION. .AREAS AFFECTED... THIS LOCAL STATEMENT PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR PORTIONS OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS AND ADJACENT COASTAL WATERS. .WATCHES/WARNINGS... A HURRICANE WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE BIG ISLAND. A HURRICANE WARNING CONTINUES FOR WATERS AROUND THE BIG ISLAND. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING CONTINUES FOR NIIHAU...KAUAI...OAHU... MOLOKAI...LANAI...KAHOOLAWE...MAUI. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING CONTINUES FOR WATERS AROUND KAUAI... WATERS AROUND OAHU...KAIWI CHANNEL...MAUI COUNTY WATERS...PAILOLO CHANNEL AND ALENUIHAHA CHANNEL. A FLASH FLOOD WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR ALL OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. .STORM INFORMATION... AT 3 AM HST...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM ISELLE WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 19.2N...LONGITUDE 155.4W...OR ABOUT 40 MILES SOUTH OF HILO HAWAII ABOUT 220 MILES SOUTHEAST OF HONOLULU HAWAII. TROPICAL STORM ISELLE IS MOVING WEST AT 11 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 60 MPH. .SITUATION OVERVIEW... HEAVY RAINS AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS CONTINUE TO AFFECT THE WINDWARD SIDE OF THE BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII AND MAUI COUNTY EARLY THIS MORNING...WITH WINDS GUSTS OVER 50 MPH REPORTED IN FEW SITES. STRONG WINDS CONTINUED OVER OAHU AS WELL...WITH WIND GUSTS OVER 50 MPH REPORTED OVER THE KOOLAU MOUNTAINS. SWELLS GENERATED BY ISELLE WILL CONTINUE TO BUILD TODAY...POSSIBLY BECOMING DAMAGING ALONG SOME COASTLINES. THE THREAT OF COASTAL FLOODING AND PROPERTY DAMAGE WILL BE GREATEST ON WINDWARD BIG ISLAND.
Hurricane Iselle disintegrates before landfall in Hawaii
————
Global Warming causes Climate Disintegration!
We’re DOOOOOMMMMED!!!
note to WUWT readers: the preceding has been a joke 😉
note to warmunists: if you start using my term “Climate Disintegration”, you will owe me royalties.
The current satellite loop looks is pretty interesting. It looks like the storm hits the big island and completely breaks apart.
I sent that story in less than an hour ago… a BIG Mahalo….Kevin…
@Mark and the two cats
henry says
how do I understand the reason for your screen name correctly
[I have two dogs]
it is globally cooling
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
It’s funny how the story was about a “one two punch” for Hawaii. Turned out to be one: a poke and two: the *whiff*. The count: two balls, no hurricane strikes.
“The big island of Hawaii is a place where hurricanes come to die”
So there was never any danger and we were not given any clue of this.
It hit Hawaii. Hawaii hit back.
Same thing happened July last year. Ended up being a big non-event.
So the Big Island should be renamed Chuck Norris.
And of course the Weather Channel has a large radar image the Iselle breaking up against the Big Island with the headline “STONGEST ON RECORD” nice and big on their home page…
http://www.weather.com/
A low ha ha ha!
Looking at hurricane climo, why is Hawaii so protected? Why the dead spot right in the middle of the Pacific?
Hurricane climo shows it’s probably more dangerous in St. Louis or Pittsburgh than Honolulu.
In this case, friction did her it. But that doesn’t explain the overall dearth.
How long will the weather services track a non existent storm?
http://i.imwx.com/images/maps/truvu/map_specnewsdct-93_ltst_4namus_enus_650x366.jpg
Did weather models predict this development? In particular, ECMWF is highly rated for its “tracking of a hurricane when it meets the ocean-land interface”, http://judithcurry.com/2014/08/04/is-the-road-to-scientific-hell-paved-with-good-moral-intentions/#comment-615302.
Excellent reportage, upc.
Mike Lewis says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:42 am
“So the Big Island should be renamed Chuck Norris.”
Once again a commenter on WUWT wins the internet. Followed by a close second:
noaaprogrammer says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:58 am
“A low ha ha ha!”
noaaprogrammer says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:58 am
“A low ha ha ha!”
——————————————————–
That gets my vote10/10
So Hawaii is stealing all the heat and that’s where it’s hiding? If it’s conducting the heat away then I hypothesise it’s hiding in the deep mantle….or even the core….it would explain why it’s now millions of degrees down there especially with so many Hiroshimas going off.
Is my science off-beam?
noaaprogrammer says:
August 8, 2014 at 11:58 am
A low ha ha ha!
=============
ROTFL!
What a beautiful metaphor: the illogical, hysteria of CAGW, stealing headlines around the country…only to completely disintegrate and become a non-issue upon running into the reality of Mother Nature or, in this case, Hawaii. 🙂
(Hey, if I was Mother Nature, I’d probably live there.)
The big Island of Hawaii is a place where hurricanes come to die.
===
one would think the models would know that by now………but no
It looks like the direction the storm came in from makes it notable (and may somewhat account for the headline). TWC has this other article (includes graphic with other storm tracks and some history) that goes into why storms seem to approach from certain directions and in many cases loose strength near Hawaii: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/hawaii-hurricanes-history-typical-tracks-20140804
Big case of over hype. With the cool ocean temperatures
around Hawaii, you just can’t hit them with a
hurricane from the east. They have to come from
the south.
Mother Nature apparently has a sense of humor, too!
Curious George says:
August 8, 2014 at 12:06 pm
Did weather models predict this development? In particular, ECMWF is highly rated for its “tracking of a hurricane when it meets the ocean-land interface”,
The models I saw appeared to have done a good job, the second one Julio is expected to pass north of the islands and was the stronger of the two.
From about 4 days ago: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/mobile/refresh/MIATCDEP4+html/MIATCDEP4_050246.html
So maybe O’bama’s plan to build a high hurricane fence across the Midwest, really has merit.
Just build a big mound in Kansas, to look like Mauna Loa, and it should do the trick.
Oh! and you could measure CO2 from the top of Mt. Kansas, and compare with Mauna Loa, to show how well mixed CO2 is.
So there !
At least Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel got a nice little vacation all expenses paid. No wonder he toes the company line on climate. He’s probably laughing all the way home.
I think it was last year, a tropical system was heading into Texas during the height of the drought and everyone was looking forward to the system’s rain. Dang storm evaporated in hours.
The delicate side of tropical cyclones….
The big island has only been hit by two tropical storms in the past 50+ years. Must never rain there? I think they are excluding tropical storms that approach from the east and south. Makes for a good headline on weather.com
ABC in Australia was very disappointed that this fizzled out as they had been hoping for a Giant Stormageddon to hit Hawaii. Winter in Australia has been noticeably colder than usual and they were seeking some relief from the pressure on CAGW.
Mother Nature takes it revenge on Hawai’i from the north. The islands can and do get pummeled by storms from the Gulf of Alaska, typically mid Jan to late Feb.
If God has a twisted sense of humor, he’ll nail Hawai’i just after Christmas with snow on Maui and Oahu. (sorry UpCountry, nothing personal against you.)
So if the Big Island was having a nice large volcanic eruption keeping the surrounding air warm, that would have allowed the hurricane to approach which subsequently would aid the cooling and hardening of the flowing lava?
I thought hurricanes in the Pacific where called typhoons.
Typhoons are West of 180E, and Hurricanes East of that “date” line.
Imagine the world crisis of a tropical storm hitting a tropical island during tropical storm season.
The AP literally posted a breathless minute-by-minute account of this moderate tropical storm passing over Hawaii.
What maroons.
Schadenfraud.
The joy in seeing fr**audulent pseudoscience being destroyed by nature.
Schadenfraud.
Great picture
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2719152/Pictured-Stunning-satellite-image-Earth-reveals-four-ferocious-storms-churning-Pacific-Ocean-SAME-time.html
I’ll ask again… Hawaii seems to be in a huge dead spot for hurricane activity considering the latitude. Here is the climo…
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/7000/7079/tropical_cyclone_map_lrg.gif
Why? Weather is my forte but not so much hurricanes.
Can anyone address the issues involved in the low climo…
… friction is obvious esp on the Big island
… cool water ? why?
… what other factors.
Inquiring minds want to know. Thx
http://sirocco.accuweather.com/sat_mosaic_640x480_public/ei/isaehi_.gif
Only Godzilla can cause damage to Hawaii, plus the occasional tsunami.
Mary Brown:
Hawai’i is quite close to the center of the great, anti-cyclonic north Pacific gyre, similar to the Azores high in the north Atlantic. Geostrophic winds and ocean currents thus both conspire to keep tropical storm paths usually to the south, recurving to the west and northwest. High atmospheric pressure and colder waters in the northeast quadrant strongly inhibit tropical cyclones from coursing there
@mwhite:
Interesting picture, but the headline and quote make the point of over hyped storms. “Ferocious” is a bit strong. In the image, Genevieve is a just barely recovered Cat 1 (no eye visible), Iselle is a dying Cat 1 and Julio is a Cat 3 weakening to a Cat 2. The quote, “‘I can’t remember the last time when there were four storms of such intensity travelling the Pacific Ocean at the same time,’ Julian Heming, a tropical prediction scientist told MailOnline” indicates that Julian is indeed a young person. I saw many satellite images of multiple tropical storms/hurricanes developing in the tropics all across the Pacific in the 80s when I was looking at those images most every day. But since GOES satellites have only been up since 1975, and only showing images 100% of the time since 1994, we really don’t know how many times there may have been 4 storms just reaching hurricane level in the tropical Pacific, even back only 20 years.
Shouldn’t windshear be taken into account? Take a look at the radar loop, upper left. You can see the high level winds blowing in the SW direction, then collides with Iselle and decapitates it.
Also look at the clouds northeast of the islands, the entire Iselle cloud mass disintegrates from wind shear, not because it hit Hawaii island.
Based on the past few weeks discussions here about the nature ofnthe PDO and about the dying E Nino, sloshing, aren’t Iselle Julio etc. the death knell for the CAGW Thermegdonites hopes to halt the Great Cooling Pause via a Super El Nino?.
Operation of the southern jet stream in the Pacific.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-152.12,-15.98,481
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-152.12,-15.98,481