Rik looses a great friend + Hawaii VOG
It’s the coldest time of the year. The last couple of weeks of January bring the coldest air, according the NOAA statics. Look it up and you’ll also find that the warmest average temperatures come a month after the sun is at its peak in June....so July 20th-ish is the warmest. A month after the shortest daylight brings the cold in January around the 21st. Amazing isn’t it.
So, my wife and I have hit the beaches of Waikiki again. We have found a cheap, but clean, condo two blocks up from the sands of Waikiki. Fire trucks and crazy people galore, but it’s a far cry from the peaceful tranquility of Secret Lake. My oldest son is keeping the fires burning at home while waiting for snow.
A VERY SAD NOTE GREATED US THIS WEEK WHEN OUR EXCELLANT BLACK Lab Rainy fell sick with a rapidly advancing heart disease. The vets tried what they could to save our great friend, but she moved on to another place. I cannot express right here, what sorrow has fallen on our family. A friend, a playmate, retriever and sleeping companion is now chasing squirrels and grouse at the right hand of God, this I know. Dog owners know the heartbreak our family has right now, while non dog/cat people cannot understand. Rainy was the best friend any family could have had. Too short was her time with the Jordans.
Watching the weather around Oahu and Honolulu is not like back in the Northland. The TV weather caster has about 45 seconds to say the high is 80 and the low is 67. He’ll tal\k about trade winds and surf and then he’s gone. Back home, the weather people get 6 or 10 minutes to elaborate on the systems that are coming or not coming. One of the very odd deals we have been experiencing is called VOG. A contraction of fog and Kilauea volcano release.. I took liberty to include some information from the Wikipedia Web Site:
Vog is created when volcanic gases (primarily oxides of sulfur) react with sunlight, oxygen and moisture. The result includes sulphuric acid and other sulfates.[2] Vog is made up of a mixture of gases and aerosols which makes it hard to study and potentially more dangerous than either on their own.[3]
In Hawaii, the gas plumes of Kīlauea rise up from three locations: Halemaʻumaʻu Crater, Puʻu ʻŌʻō vent, and from along the coastline where lava flows from the East Rift zone enter the ocean. The plumes create a blanket of vog that can envelop the island. Vog mostly affects the Kona coast on the west side of the Island of Hawaiʻi, where the prevailing trade winds blow the vog to the southwest and southern winds then blow it north up the Kohala coast.
Prolonged periods of southerly Kona winds, however, can cause vog to affect the eastern side of the Island on rare occasions, and affect islands across the entire state as well.[3] By the time the vog reaches other islands, the sulfur dioxide has largely dissipated, leaving behind ash, smoke, sulfates, and ammonia.[4]
Fog, which we get in the Northland is just a low wet cloud. Smog is what the bigger cities get when auto emissions form into clouds close to the ground. Both turn into an aerosol that can cause hea;th problems, long term.. When smog levels are high the sky looks yellowish grey because nitrogen oxides are yellow. In contrast, sulfur oxides are colorless and vog looks grey. Once vog dissipates, grey spots in the sky may for a time remain trapped in the inversion layer.
It’s remarkable that the vog is over Oahu because we are a hundred miles from the Kilauea volcano located on what the locals call The Big Island of Hawaii. Yet, here it is today.Voggy and hot and the tv weather girl promises that the Trade Winds will be returning in a few days to blow the vog away and bring cooler, clearer weather.
