Hot, Dry an Voggy

excerpt from the 01/07/10 Hawaii Tribune Herald  

"With El Niño’s influence now in full effect, East Hawaii is experiencing warm, dry weather and heavy vog. And there is little relief on the horizon, according to the National Weather Service.  Speaking from Honolulu on Wednesday, NWS hydrologist Kevin Kodama said the weather station at Hilo International Airport recorded an above-average year for precipitation in 2009, but since Dec. 19, conditions have been unusually dry. So far this year, the Big Island has seen only trace amounts of rain in Hilo and most parts of East Hawaii. Under normal conditions, rainfall at Hilo airport is about 10.5 inches in December, 9.74 inches in January and 8.86 inches in February.  But, “with El Niño in place in the tropical Pacific (Ocean), we get abnormal warming of the sea surface temperatures near the Equator. Patterns in the atmosphere respond to that, even as far as the continental U.S,” Kodama said. “One of the major effects for (Hawaii) is that we tend to get stable and dry conditions from mid-December into spring.”  Kodama said that the El Niño phenomenon can affect weather patterns every few years, with varying intensity.  “The last El Niño was the winter of 2006-07, but that wasn’t really a strong one,” he said.