NWS Honolulu Forecast Office visit (10-14-06)

The NWS Honolulu Forecast Office was in the calm between storms. In the morning the Office was busy watching Tropical Depression Four-C (a blue circle in the middle in the water vapor image at left), which was later downgraded to a tropical disturbance.

In addition, a cold front was approaching (a hanging blue-white foxtail above Hawai‘i in the image). Ms. Nezette Rydeil, the Warning Coordination Meteorologist, told us that we would definitely receive rain tonight, and therefore, the Office would be busy again.

We settled comfortably into the conference room, and Nezette showed us a PowerPoint presentation about the mission of NWS, tasks of the Honolulu Office, etc. In Hawai‘i, usually weather is not a part of news stories, but when it makes a story, it becomes THE story, Nezette said.

The Honolulu Forecast Office is the largest office in the Pacific region, because the office covers so much area—bigger than the entire mainland United States! It was interesting to learn that the number of tornadoes has increased in Hawai‘i in the last several years. Tornadoes occur more in Hawai‘i than in 11 other states—We are not doing so bad!

Next, we had a tour of the forecasting office. Tim Craig, Ray Tanabe, Bob Ballard, Tom Birchard and Ian were working hard at the forecasting desks. We can blame these forecasters for blocking trade winds from us for so long (and they said they will block trade winds one more week, at least!).

For more information about the NWS Honolulu Forecast Office, visit their web site at:

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/pages/about.php

For weather forecasting, visit:

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/

Mahalo to Ms. Rydell and the NWS for their hospitality!

Reported by Toshi Ikagawa, Instructor

October 14, 2006

P.S. This was the eve of the October 15^th earthquake! I am certain that the Office was more than busy on October 15^th.