The instruments were warming up. Liquid nitrogen exhausted, cooling interrupted by loss of power, the cryogenic dewars had begun to warm. Recovering instruments takes many days of vacuum pumps and re-cooling to restore function if cooling has been loss. Other problems caused by the storm and power outages plagued the summit, some systems not responding to remote queries.
Keck Observatory covered in heavy iceOn Friday, the crew had abandoned early in the day in the face of deteriorating weather conditions. With the storm raging, no one had made it to the summit on Saturday. We all watched as remote weather instruments reported sustained winds of over 100mph and gusts as high as 134mph. With the wind came freezing fog, a thick coating of ice forming on every surface. The snowplow crews did not even try Saturday, it was just too dangerous.
Sunday offered at least a hope of making it to the summit. The storm had abated and beautiful sunny skies appeared over the summit. We readied for an attempt at the summit of Mauna Kea. As the engineer on call I would join the support techs at the summit. Maybe we could salvage something from the chaos.
A few fireworks from my neighbor’s modest show. At least somewhat modest compared to many in the village. With so many families practicing oriental traditions, the amount of fireworks expended for the new year celebration is rather staggering in a Hawaiian neighborhood. Then there are the resort shows, big professional aerials, I can just see them from the front lanai. They are distant, but the sounds reverberate and they light up the low cloud deck with a colorful glow.
Wishing you a happy new year, may it bring good memories and fun adventures!
Andrew
Not a great deal of snow, maybe an inch or two rearranged by the winds. More snow is expected over the coming few days before this storm is over. Where to find the heaviest snow on the mountain? Puʻu Poliʻahu of course, just look at the images below.
This is the first winter storm that our new weather mast camera is operating, since I bolted it in place a couple months ago. It is great fun to have a full pan-tilt-zoom camera available during weather events like this.
The summit ridge with an inch of fresh snowSnow around the Subaru telescope
Living in Hawaiʻi you pick up a few additions to your vocabulary. For centuries the islands have been a stew of languages, each borrowing words from one another. Hawaiian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, English, Spanish and more have all added to the flavor of these islands. Everyone uses a few words from other languages in everyday conversation. Then there are local folks who grew up speaking the full mixture, a pidgin unique to the islands.
A handheld radio used at Keck for daily communication.Working with a bunch of island guys you need to learn a bit of pidgin simply to understand the conversations around you. To an English speaker, such as myself, the syntax seems mixed about. The words are mostly English and Hawaiian, with a clear context and a little exposure you begin to pick it up. After a while it seems natural to hear pidgin around you.
Some of the words that Hawaiian supplies seem much better than the English equivalents, it is understandable that they are used in preference to the English words. Some are simply more appropriate on an island… Mauka and Makai make perfect sense where everything is either towards the mountain or towards the sea. Puʻu us the perfect name for the numerous volcanic hills that dot the island. Puka, for small hole, just sounds right.
My favorite is Pau, meaning finished or done, a word that is commonly heard on the Keck radio channels. “How are you guys doing up there?” might go the radio chatter, “We all pau!” Something about the word just works, the sound and the meaning in agreement.
I expect these words will stay in my vocabulary, alongside British expressions I picked up living in England decades ago. Language is a fluid and dynamic thing, part of the richness of our lives.
An excellent video showing how pāhoehoe lava flows advance. A flow is a surprisingly complex process. A quick look or photograph will fail to reveal what it going on, it takes time to observe something that occurs this slowly. I have spent hours watching and filming flow fronts advance, totally amazed at what I saw when I really watched…
Time lapse shows the process more clearly than watching in person. It is the inflation of a pāhoehoe flow that shows in a compressed timescale. A flow a foot or two thick becomes six or ten feet thick over the course of a few hours. Also revealed are how other features of the flow form… The ropy surface, the broken plates, the cracks where lava has oozed out. After having watched a flow in process I see old lava flows in an entirely new way.
Below is an old video, filmed over several visits to the lava during the summer of 2010. I have better material now. Some time I need to put it together into a new video. Still, you can see the process of breakout, advance, crust over, inflate, then breakout again.
I have yet to have an opportunity to see an ʻaʻā flow advancing. They move entirely differently. I understand the sound of an ʻaʻā flow is impressive, a moving gravel pile of grinding and falling rock.
We have all been watching the lava flow for the past several weeks as it crept ever closer to the homes and businesses of Pāhoa. Not since the destruction of Kalapana in the 1980’s has the volcano threatened so much destruction. This historic plantation town is a special place, a town with a very unique character, a place that preserves some of what makes Hawaiʻi special.
This morning the flow crossed the first road above the town. If the flow keeps the current advancement rate it will be in the town over the next couple days. My thoughts are with the residents of Pāhoa… Stay safe!
