Hunga Tonga Eruption

Here's a great video from New Zealand about some of the impacts of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano that erupted on Friday evening. 

FYI There were more earthquakes in Tonga this morning that generated a tsunami advisory for Samoa; no advisory was issued for Hawaiʻi or the West Coast. Below are 2 of the graphics along with the accompanying bulletin, followed by the final bulletins for American Samoa & California.

 

The surge from the eruption caused some damage in Kona but no one was injured. That was probably due to the fact that it arrived just after midnight Saturday morning when nearly everyone was asleep. The photos below are from the president of the canoe club sponsoring a regatta that was supposed to have been held yesterday; he went out early Saturday morning to check on the canoes since the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had predicted a surge of 3 feet or less for the area. The King Kamehameha Beach Hotel suffered minor damage; their fitness center & the Honu's on the Beach cafe were closed for the day. There was no other damage to the hotel property.

Since it was a Fast Day, I slept most of day. I have been using my Fast Days to recharge & get more rest.

The endemic butterflies are in decline; the only 2 here are the Kamehameha Butterfly (the State Insect) & the Hawaiian Blue. I had been planning on planting mamaki (Pipterus albidus) at the Kohala house so that if there were any Kamehameha Butterflies in the area they would have some new habitat to lay their eggs on. I had already been considering the use of the ʻaʻaliʻi (Dodonea viscosa) as a native landscape plant but did not know it was beneficial to the Hawaiian Blue; now that I do I will definitely be looking for a place for it on the property.

I also looked in to the Pulelehua Project site on iNaturalist. I think I will start looking for these endemic butterflies & document them if I see any.

I like the graph showing when the species is most likely to be found.

I'm not on Facebook very often; I had only joined about a dozen years ago so I could build a page for one of the organizations that I did volunteer work for. I had to create a page for myself; if you go to it you will see very little in the last 6 or 8 years or so. I think that is why Facebook (Meta?) had difficulty in figuring out what other pages I might like. This is what it gave me as a recommendation today when I looked at it.

For dinner I had the remainder of the teriyaki wanna be that I found in the freezer.

In comparison to Hunga Tonga, the eruption at Kīlauea volcano is quite mild. In fact, today it seemed to be getting quieter. Mauna Kea is still fairly covered with snow.

 

The Aix weather app forecast partly cloudy in Honolulu until about mid-afternoon when it forecast drizzles through the remainder of the evening; it was accurate during the daylight hours but not after dark. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast drizzle all day except for a few hours from mid-afternoon to dark; Big Island Now forecast mostly sunny with isolated showers in the morning, turning to partly sunny with scattered showers in the afternoon & a 50% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station did not record any precipitation for the day. For Marysville, Aix forecast partly cloudy skies all day; the traffic cam appeared to support that.

The was a High Surf Advisory for the north and west facing shores. The south & est facing shorelines were smaller.

Laniakea (N) at 8:10 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 8:11 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 8:12 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 8:14 a.m.

Laniakea (N) at 4:43 p.m.; I got what I paid for, it's free.

Hilo Bay (E) at 4:42 p.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 4:44 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 4:46 p.m.

There were 3878 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 169,886. There were also 3 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 1126; currently there are 48,849 cases that are considered active. The 7-day new case average for the State is 3425; the 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 2545. No positivity rate is currently being calculated since the system is overwhelmed dealing with the positive cases.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Karena!