Goofy Weather

Goofy Weather was Originally Posted on March 26, 2012 by lavarock

Well, we had an earthquake the other day, a 4.9 on the other side of the island; yet felt here. Because the island was created by 5 volcanos I guess there are many fault lines that help the waves travel around. Not all of the volcanos here are active and there will be settling happening froever. The summits here are almost 15,000 feet of layered lava abouve se level and another 20,000 feet to the ocen floor. Thus 35,000 feet of rock pushing down. There has to be some settling!

The recent earthquake in Chile did not product a tsunami. Hawaii is a prime target for tsunami waves being in the middle of the Pacific. Luckily we have advance notice in most cases. Here is a video from the condos (where I used to work) during last years tsunami. The surge broke the ground floor windows and some units had 3 foot of water in the for a while. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIVms7Z6Kvs

I took the dogs out last night and it was quite cool with a clear sky. Within a half hour it was raining fairly hard. The summits are below freezing this morning and we have some snow. There could be even more coming. I love a snowy March, especially when I can be in shorts nearby.

You know, another odd thing for me is that usually our weather comes from the east and not the west as you get on the mainland U.S.

One cool weather event was a 2007 hurricane that was headed towards our island. As it aproched from the East, it met Mauna Loa, one of the 14,000+ foot mountains. The mountain had just too much mass to be effected by a hurricane of category 3. It was expected to pass within 85 miles of us, but fizzled because of the mountain/volcano.

While waiting for that hurricane, we had a 5.3 earthquake. Seems madam Pele was rearing up to meet that threat.