Islands in Hawaii have different sizes and terrain heights with notable differences in climate and weather. In this study, the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) land surface model (LSM) is used to conduct numerical simulations for the island of Hawaii with different model terrain heights and sizes during the diurnal cycle for the Hawaiian Rainband Project (HaRP) period. In addition to island blocking and orographic lifting, terrain heights also affect the land surface thermal forcing throughout the diurnal cycle by the variations of orographic clouds during the day and by the variations of the longwave radiation heat loss at night. The simulated rainfall distributions and amounts throughout the diurnal cycle are closely related to rising motions caused by nonlinear interactions among island blocking, orographic lifting, and land surface processes. Besides the terrain/mountain height, island size is another factor that affects rainfall production and distribution in Hawaii, because island size affects orographic lifting, surface forcing, and the advection time scale for an air parcel to reach the mountaintop. The heavy rainfall maximum on the mountaintop of the island of Kauai is due to its suitable height and size. This study confirms that the evening rainfall maximum along the western Kona leeside coast is caused by the convergence between the westerly return flow and the offshore flow. For a lower model terrain, the westerly return flow is weaker; as a result, there are smaller evening rainfall amounts.

The fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5)/land surface model (LSM) is used to simulate the diurnal island-scale circulations over the island of Hawaii during the Hawaiian Rainband Project (HaRP, 11 July–24 August 1990). The model is initialized with the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data. The diurnal variations of the land–sea thermal contrast at the land surface and the planetary boundary layer at Hilo, Hawaii, are well simulated. The main discrepancy occurs on the leeside areas of mountains or ridges below the trade wind inversion (2 km), where the simulated afternoon land–sea thermal contrast at the surface is 1°–3°C lower than observed mainly due to the misrepresentation of lava rocks by the bare ground category in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data and stronger than observed simulated sea breezes bringing in relatively cool maritime air. The flow deceleration and splitting of the incoming trade wind flow and the evolution of the diurnal circulation cells on the windward side, the thermally driven diurnal winds, and the wake circulations on the lee side are well simulated. The simulated diurnal variations in rainfall are also in good agreement with observations. However, the simulated winds in areas well exposed to the trade wind flow are weaker (1–3 m s⁻¹) than observed mainly due to the underestimation of trade wind flow in the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis. The simulated rainfall over windward lowlands at night is underestimated and the maximum rainfall axis shifts farther toward the coast as compared with observations, due to an underestimation of orographic lifting aloft and a relatively large horizontal extent of the simulated katabatic flow because of the weaker- than-observed trade wind flow in the initial conditions. In the afternoon hours on the windward side, the strongest winds (anabatic/sea breeze and trade wind flow) are simulated in low levels over land in response to the surface heating, with a westerly wind deviation beneath the mean trade wind inversion (2 km) and sinking motion over the adjacent oceans. The simulated low-level flow deceleration of the incoming trade wind flow is most significant in the early morning as a combination of island blocking and nocturnal cooling over land. At that time, the simulated upward motion representing the rising branch of the thermally direct circulation extends more than 40 km offshore. Sensitivity tests show that with better surface conditions in the model coupled with the Oregon State University (OSU) LSM, the simulated thermal forcing over land is improved. The improvements in simulated ground temperature, land–sea thermal contrast at the land surface, and mixing ratio lead to better simulation of the strength of land/sea breezes over the island.

Using aircraft data and portable automated mesonet (PAM) data during the Hawaiian Rainband Project (HaRP; 11 July–24 August 1990), the circulation on the lee side of the island of Hawaii is analyzed. The largest temperature deviations (2–3 K) and negative mixing ratio deviations (−2 to −4 g kg−1) are found in the northwestern and southwestern leeside areas of the island because of the descending trade winds aloft in the lee of low (<2 km) mountain ridges and tops. Rainfall in these areas is much less compared to the central leeside coast (e.g., Kona coast). In these areas, the sea-breeze duration is short compared to the Kona coast because of the presence of opposing trade winds; the wind speed is greater because of larger land–sea thermal contrast. During the stronger trade wind days, adiabatic descent in the lee is more significant and the LCL is higher. As a result, in the northern and southern leeside areas, localized trade wind rain showers driven by local circulations occur mainly under wea... Abstract Using aircraft data and portable automated mesonet (PAM) data during the Hawaiian Rainband Project (HaRP; 11 July–24 August 1990), the circulation on the lee side of the island of Hawaii is analyzed. The largest temperature deviations (2–3 K) and negative mixing ratio deviations (−2 to −4 g kg−1) are found in the northwestern and southwestern leeside areas of the island because of the descending trade winds aloft in the lee of low (<2 km) mountain ridges and tops. Rainfall in these areas is much less compared to the central leeside coast (e.g., Kona coast). In these areas, the sea-breeze duration is short compared to the Kona coast because of the presence of opposing trade winds; the wind speed is greater because of larger land–sea thermal contrast. During the stronger trade wind days, adiabatic descent in the lee is more significant and the LCL is higher. As a result, in the northern and southern leeside areas, localized trade wind rain showers driven by local circulations occur mainly under wea...

The leeside circulations and weather of the island of Hawaii were studied from the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) land surface model simulations for eight strong (∼7.9 m s−1) and eight weak (∼5.2 m s−1) trade-wind days and for five days with southeasterly trades (∼7.1 m s−1) during summer 2004. The objective is to investigate the effects of trade-wind strength and directions on the leeside circulations and rainfall and the modification of these effects by the land surface thermal forcing. For the small wake on the lee side of the Kohala Mountains (1700 m, lower than the trade-wind inversion at 2000 m) over northern Hawaii, the hydraulic jump is present with stronger downslope winds and warmer and drier conditions on the lee side and a weaker westerly reversed flow offshore when trades are stronger. In contrast, the westerly reversed flow along the large wake axis off the central Kona leeside coast (behind massive mountains with tops >4000 m) is 1–1.5 m s−1 stronger and 200–300 m deeper with higher moisture content when trades are stronger. Over the Kona slopes, the daytime thermally direct circulation cell is more significant when trades are stronger because of descending airflow aloft with less cloudiness. In the evening, the convergence between the westerly reversed flow offshore along the wake axis and the offshore/katabatic flow in the Kona coastal region is more significant with higher evening rainfall when trades are stronger. During the day, the lee side of the Kohala Mountains is characterized by a reversed flow (∼4 m s−1) merging with sea-breeze circulations along the coast. When trades are stronger, the convergence between the anabatic winds and the descending flow from the upper slopes is greater. However, the simulated cloud water there is less under strong trades because of warmer and drier conditions due to significant adiabatic descent in the lee. At night, when trades are stronger, the combined downslope/katabatic flow prevails without a reversed flow offshore. Under a southeasterly trade-wind flow with a lower trade-wind inversion (1.5 km), the westerly reversed flow is shallower; the adiabatic descent aloft on the southwestern leeside areas is more significant with warmer temperatures (0.5 K), a larger negative potential vorticity maximum [0.2 potential vorticity units (PVU), 1 PVU = 10−6 K m2 s−1 kg−1], and a more pronounced anticyclonic vortex offshore. The westerly reversed flow off the Kona coast shifts northward.

Island thermal effects on the trail cloud band over the central North Pacific are investigated for the lee of Hawaii using satellite observations and a regional atmospheric model. The trail cloud band develops around noon and peaks in cloudiness in the early afternoon. The analysis of numerical simulations of the Kauai wake suggests that a dynamically induced convergence zone forms in the lee of Kauai and Oahu (maximum elevation at 1.5 and 1.2 km, respectively) under the trade wind flow. The island thermal effect significantly modulates the island wake and creates a diurnal cycle of development and decay in the lee cloud band. As solar radiation heats up the island from morning to afternoon, warm air moves downstream (warm advection) from the island in the wake zone, increasing the air temperature, decreasing the air pressure, and enhancing low-level wind convergence in favor of the formation of the trail clouds. Conversely the cold advection during night suppresses cloud formation in the wake. The warm advection and the convergence in the wake increase with the upstream trade wind strength, consistent with satellite observations that the cloudiness increases in the wake under strong wind conditions in the afternoon. The similarity in the trail cloud and its diurnal cycle between Kauai and Oahu suggests that the thermal wake effect is quite common. The conditions for such a thermal wake are discussed.