Aloha, Janice!

Janice left on a morning flight today. I dropped her off around 7:15. She gave me a bag of leftovers from her visit here. Later in the afternoon, around 3 p.m. she was texting from the light rail station that she had arrived safely. 

At the airport.

Leftovers.

Around 5 in the morning Breanna texted me; her plane was delayed about an hour but they were finally taxiing for take-off. I found out later there was fresh snow last night & early this morning that delayed them. I kept a window open on my laptop with Flight Aware & referred to it every so often to see where she was in her flight back. She landed a little after 4 p.m.; she spent almost 12 hours on the plane! 

At 9:26 a.m. HST.

At 3:30 p.m. HST.

At 4:08 p.m. HST.

I took Breanna to dinner at Nico's Pier 38; we both had the Furikake Pan-seared Ahi. Then we went to Via Gelato for dessert; she had a small cup with Vegan Coconut Caramel Honeycomb & Fierce Chocolate and I had a mini cup of Dark Chocolate Sorbetto. She said it was good to be back home! She had been missing the warm weather & green trees here.

Some of the options.

The pre-packed pints.

A sweet end to a long day of travel.

I got an email this morning from Marjorie. She summarized the different Medical Reserve Corps opportunities this month. She also included a link to the January sign up to let her know what weeks you are able to volunteer. For January I will only be volunteering one day a week at the most.

I printed out the form from Young Brothers to make a reservation to ship the Crosstrek to Hawaiʻi Island. I am hoping to be able to ship it in the 2nd week of February.

I have not heard back from the NOAA contact person about the whale counting citizen science project. So I reread the article to get the information on the non-profit organization that is working with NOAA & sent an email to the Sanctuary Ocean Count.

Several Hawaiʻi Island organizations are receiving funds for environmentally related projects. I wonder if there will be some volunteer opportunities near where I will be? The seven organizations are the Big Island Invasive Species Committee, the Hawaiʻi Forest Institute, Hoʻoulu Lāhui, Hui Aloha Kīholo, Kalanihale, The Kohala Center, & Waikōloa Dry Forest Initiative.

Well, I guess I am not going to miss the Waimea Cherry Blossom Heritage Festival in February. It's been cancelled due to COVID-19. They are planning to hold it next year, which will be the 30th anniversary of this event.

There was an article in Big Island Now about people trespassing on private property to access a trail, then getting upset when they were no longer allowed to trespass. I frequently had to deal with that when I was working; neighbors assumed they could use someone else's property for their own recreation. Sometimes I would be confronted when I was onsite reviewing a property where the owner had applied for a permit; sometimes I was responding to a complaint from a trespasser about the property being developed. They never liked it when I told them they were actually trespassing on a private property & really had no legal right to do what they were doing even if the person did not live there & they lived nearby.

The Star-Advertiser has a sort of weekly column called Rearview Mirror which reminisces about past times. This week's article was about what the columnist calls "misconceptions", though I would call some plain ignorance. In case you are wondering, I have had similar experiences; I have been asked where I learned to speak such good English & told that I had to pay for shipping to Hawai'i because it was not part of the United States so did not qualify for free shipping! And this is within the last decade or so not in the 1990's or earlier like some of the experiences in the article.

This week's Volcano Watch article was about Alexander Lancaster, who guided volcanologists & tourists around Kīlauea from 1885 to 1928. This was before the volcano observatory was built; his citizen scientist observations helped early volcanologists with establishing the observatory & collecting more information about the eruptions. 

Kīlauea volcano is still active. There was a light dusting of new snow on Mauna Kea this morning; it was melted off by mid-afternoon.

It's snowing!

Now it's gone.

The Aix weather app forecast partly cloudy skies for Honolulu until mid-afternoon when it also indicated light drizzle until the evening; I don't recall any drizzles but the rest was accurate. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast much of the same except a shorter period of drizzles; Big Island Now forecast mostly sunny in the morning then becoming partly sunny with a 30% chance of showers. The Honomū weather station did not record any precipitation for today. For Marysville, Aix forecast heavy rain in the morning becoming lighter later in the day but never stopping; the traffic cam showed a dry roadway.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 6:40 a.m.

Airport looking easterly at 7:15 a.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 8:31 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 8:31 a.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 8:32 a.m. HST.

Waikīkī looking easterly at 8:34 a.m.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 4:12 p.m.

Nā Koʻolau at 4:17 p.m.

There was a High Surf Advisory for the west facing shores on Hawaiʻi Island through the evening; on Oʻahu the surf on the west shores was 7 to 10 feet & decreasing. On Oʻahu north shore swells were larger  & expected to be ven bigger tomorrow. Surf along the east facing shores was decreasing & along the south shorelines it was labelled as "small" but was pretty flat.

Laniakea (N) at 8:33 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 8:33 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 8:34 a.m.

Banyans (W) st 8:35 a.m.

There was a magnitude 5.2 earthquake northwest of Yakutat & about 13 miles deep during the late evening news. It did not generate a tsunami.

There have been doubts raised about the ability of some rapid tests to accurately identify the Omicron variant. Unfortunately for us, one of the tests being questioned is the one we have! Auë! According to the article, it took an average of 3 days after a PCR test indicated the person was positive for COVID-19 that the rapid test provided the same result. It was not clear whether the difference in results was due to the rapid tests being less sensitive or whether the saliva-based test was better able to detect the Omicron variant than a nasal swab-based test. The article did not say whether there was any other study underway to test either hypothesis. It has always been known that the rapid tests were less sensitive than the PCR tests in identifying a positive occurrence so I am not sure why they singled out that data, but I am happy to be aware of that timing information. I think since Omicron was 1st detected, & its genomic signature indicated the large number of changes in the spike protein, it has always been a concern that the tests developed using the original spike architecture might not be able to detect the Omicron variant with as much reliability. Until they come up with a different rapid test specific to the Omicron spike we will have to be satisfied with a lower reliability of the current rapid tests.

There were 3586 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 134,442. There were also 3 new deaths reported, increasing the number of fatalities to 1101; currently there are 34,373 cases considered active. As of today there have been 2,581,609 doses of vaccine administered, providing 74.7% of the State population with full vaccination & 80.3% with at least one dose; 27% have received a 3rd dose. Currently there are 248 cases that are hospitalized, with 24 in the ICU & 12 on ventilators. The LG tweeted that 101 of the hospitalized cases are vaccinated, implying that 59% are unvaccinated. The 7-day new case average for the State is 2863 with a test positivity rate of 19.4%. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 2137 with a test positivity rate of 21.2%.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Ben & Bick!