It's Pouring!

On the nightly TV news, in the newspapers, in blogs, & in weather forecasts for the last couple of days they were saying we were in for a wet weekend. It finally arrived this morning. And it was really wet! Kinda like post-hurricane/tropical storm wet but without the mugginess. But it was not as intense as the thunderstorm that we experienced in Kansas City, MO, about 20 years ago. Fortunately, it was not constant rain & the intermittent showers were not usually torrential downpours. (I take photos of the worst of it for you.) 

A couple days ago The Potential Most Favorite Roommate reorganized his plants in the cat run. He put them up on 2 tiers of shelves; hopefully the cats will not knock them over. The good thing about this is that they did not have to sit in the flood of water that runs along the wall where they were originally. I closed the sliding door so that just the cat door area was open; I wanted to limit the amount of rain blown in to the house.

It's a good thing they're up on the shelves.

Otherwise they would be sitting in this.

Or this.

No one went outside; I closed it a couple hours after this photo.

When I turned out the lights in my bedroom last night I was surprised that it was so well lighted in my bedroom. Then I remembered that The Potential Most Favorite Roommate said they were going to put up the Christmas lights yesterday. They are very bright! Fortunately they go off automatically around midnight.

They really light things up!

Today is a Fast Day so no food photos until dinner. It was annoying; I wanted phó or tom kha gai to warm me up. Now I will have to wait & see if this cooler weather continues tomorrow. If so I will try the phó at Saigon's Restaurant.

Marjorie sent out an email regarding the weather; the wet weather brings a risk of flooding. Right now there are no clinics scheduled for next week that MRC has been requested to help with. Most clinics have an outside or open air component to reduce SARS CoV-2 transmission during the clinic. Just before dinner Marjorie sent another email; The American Red Cross will be the primary agency staffing the shelters but MRC will be called up if they need more help. I did not volunteer for this since the vaccine status of shelter users is unknown; at least with the booster clinics I know nearly everyone there has had at least 1 shot. (We did get a couple people finally coming in for their 1st shots.) 

At 10 a.m.

At 5:13 p.m.

Later Sue sent out an email canceling the Neighborhood Security Walk with the HPD officers tomorrow because of the weather forecast. It will be rescheduled. 

Yesterday, when I was at Foster Botanical Garden, The Potential Most Favorite Roommate called me. He had found a Kadota Fig & wanted to know if I wanted it. I said yes; now I will have to figure out if it will be able to survive a boat ride & sitting in a potentially hot car for a couple of days.

I circled the fig so you could see it in the middle of all the lau ʻuala.

For dinner I tried the Field Roast Classic Nuggets; they look like chicken nuggets but are all plant-material. The package does not have any microwave directions; just 20 minutes in a 400 degree F oven. I will have to experiment with putting them in to the air fryer. I had some cauliflower rice with the nuggets; 4 is the serving size listed on the package.

The forecast for tonight was for up to 5 more inches of rain for some places. Then about 6 p.m. an emergency warning came over the television; there was a flood warning for Hawai'i County. At around 6:30 pm the flood warning was expanded to include Maui County. At about the same time the City & County of Honolulu opened up 4 emergency shelters around the island. Auē!

Those of you who read the synopsis of the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi article yesterday might have been surprised to see it was talking about contamination of one of the aquifers on Oʻahu. Water that smelled of petroleum products was brought to the attention of the general public about a week ago by Navy housing residents who have been trying to get the Navy to do something. Apparently the Navy knew about the contamination since July. Auē! The Board of Water Supply also just found out about this recently since the Navy has not been submitting their well test results in a timely manner. The Navy's Red Hill fuel storage tanks are the suspected source of the contamination. The BWS has shut down its well closest to the fuel storage tanks in an effort to keep fuel from seeping in to its system; water is being drawn from other wells on the island to supply customers previously being supplied by the Halawa Well. According to the BWS, if the fuel leaks contaminate this aquifer, it will be decades before it will be usable again & will make water conservation mandatory. Auē!

On the evening news, they said it appears that the eruption at Kīlauea is slowing down. It was foggy today so I could not see what was happening. And it appears the fog is still affecting the thermal imaging so that makes it impossible to see the size of the lava lake or how active the vent is.

Here is the view from the Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope of the snow conditions at the summit of Mauna Kea. This camera is aimed towards the Gemini Northern Telescope which is just south of the CFHT. Not much to see.

At 10:08 a.m. Nothing.

At 11:10 a.m. You can just barely Gemini Northern Telescope.

At 11:59 a.m. it disappears again.

At 1:00 p.m. it appears again. Is it snow or fog that's making it disppear?

At 2:59 p.m., still hanging in there.

At 5:00 p.m., gone for the evening.

I found the webcams at the Subaru telescope are much better protected from blowing snow & freezing rain than the ones at the Canada-France-Hawaiʻi telescope. I will use them when I am checking the winter weather conditions. The Subaru telescope is to the westerly side of the telescope array at the top of Mauna Kea. The web cam below is on the catwalk south of the building, looking northerly towards the Subaru telescope which is seen on the right side of the photos.

At 8:34 a.m., it did snow last night!

At 10:06 a.m., I think this is fog; hard to tell.

At 11:10 a.m., yes, that was fog; there are no piles of snow on the guardrail posts.

At 11:59, drops on lens, looks like it's warming up.

At 1:00 p.m.; looks like fog has thinned out a little,

At 3:55 p.m.; could be freezing rain on the lens.

At 5:00 p.m.; possibly getting foggier.

At 5:52 p.m.; camera out of focus or more snow coming down.

In the morning the Aix weather app forecast rain at about 0.075 in/hr for Honolulu until about mid-afternoon when it would increase to about 0.325 in/hr, then at about 8 p.m. it would increase to about 0.4 in/hr for the remainder of the evening. At about 5 p.m., Aix reassessed the conditions & forecast rain at a rate of about 0.35 in/hr from about 5 p.m. until at least 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning with thunderstorms tomorrow. It was very wet today & in to the evening!   2:11 a.m., 1:15 p.m.

Honomū 0.74 inches by 9:53 a.m., 1.29 inches by 3:54 p.m.

Kahua Ranch 0.45 @3:57 p, ?1.9?

Kaimukī looking westerly at 2:11 a.m. Not sure why this camera gets stuck all the time.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 7:44 a.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 9:31 a.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 9:44 a.m.; lots of rain on lens.

Honomū looking northerly at 10 a.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 10:02 a.m. HST.

Waikīkī looking easterly at 10:29 a.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 1:15 p.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 3:53 p.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 3:55 p.m.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 5:11 p.m.

The surf continued to be large on north facing shorelines. The weather had some affect on surf conditions.  Some time during the day the camera at Banyans was moved & now points in a different direction & is also out of focus.

Laniakea (N) at 10:02 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 10:07 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 10:30 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 10:30 a.m.

Laniakea (N) at 3:49 p.m.

HIlo Bay (E) at 3:50 p.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 5:51 p.m.

Waikīkī at 3:51 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 3:51 p.m.

It has now been about 1 week since the 1st case of the Omicron variant was found here. Since then there have been 3 suspected cases that are currently undergoing genomic testing to verify their origin. I think it took about 1&1/2 to 2 months for Delta to become the dominant strain from when it 1st appeared. Today's 7-day new case average is just slightly higher (+7%) than last Sunday's 7-day new case average; but we still have another week of incubation to really see what things might be like. However, the big missing piece of the puzzle is, "How bad is the illness that it causes?" If it is no worse than Delta it will still mean more people dying than we would like to see since it is believed to be more contagious & spread more easily. It's just math: If the same percent of people who become infected die, the number dying will be reflected in how quickly it spreads. That is, if it spreads twice as fast & has the same kill rate, we will see twice as many deaths in the equivalent time span. The ideal characteristics for a virus is to become more transmissible but less virulent; that way the host remains alive & active while transporting the virus to more victims.

There were 148 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 88,295. There was also 1 new death reported increasing the number of fatalities to 1033; currently 1242 cases are considered active. The 7-day new case average for the State is 90 with a positivity rate of 1.4%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 80 with a positivity rate of 1.2%. 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Dr. McDade & David!