What’s the Weather?

by Susan Miyasaka

 In Hawaiʻi, when you check the weather forecast, you often get a prediction of partly sunny, partly cloudy, and partly rainy – talk about covering all possibilities!

But if you’d like to know exactly what the weather is at Mealani Research Station in Kamuela, Hawaiʻi Island, or Kona Research Station in Kealakekua, Hawaiʻi Island, you can simply click HERE, because on May 20, two new weather stations were installed.

Now, when you visit the Mealani and Kona stations, you can find out the current weather conditions, which are updated every 15 minutes. You can learn about the temperatures during the past 24 hours (including daily maximum and daily minimum temps), daily accumulated rainfall, and total solar radiation. The Kona weather station also gives the relative humidity and dew point (the temperature at which dew can form).

The Mealani weather station will be useful in predicting the growth of pasture grasses for cattle grazing in the Kamuela area. The Kona weather station will help us predict coffee growth in the Kealakekua area, as well as monitor the development of pests and diseases, such as the coffee berry borer and coffee leaf rust.

The Kona weather station was funded by a USDA-ARS CBB AW project and the Mealani weather station was funded by CTAHR internal funds for improving research capacity.