The timing of this Hawaiian Airlines mass casualty incident may also provide insight into what happened.
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15 thoughts on “Bad timing + Weather Warnings: Hawaiian Airlines’ Incident Missed Details”
Home » Blog » Hawaii Travel News » Bad timing + Weather Warnings: Hawaiian Airlines’ Incident Missed Details
Hi:
I’ve been meteorologist forecaster for 38 years. What follows below is my opinion.
Elevated ocean surface temperatures over a broad area do provide energy for deep convection (updrafts) and the development of tall cumulus clouds. Tropical oceans tend to have more tall convective cumulus clouds than cooler oceans to the north or south because of that extra heat.
But unless a seamount eruption actually broke the ocean surface and spewed a plume of heat and moisture directly into the atmosphere (say, like the Tonga eruption last year), I don’t think volcanic activity heat would be concentrated sufficiently to create a dangerous storm cloud. Most of such heat would be dissipated in the ocean before it ever reached the surface.
Hi, thank you for posting this – I’ve been curious – the (reported) rapidity of the cloud plume’s formation seems highly anomalous, even in a severe thunderstorm. I did a (very) little research and discovered that 3-4 hours earlier there had been a 3.2 magnitude earthquake centered in the region of the Loihi seamount, a hydrothermal vent about 22 miles off the southeast coast of Hawaii. Local surface winds were forecast to be from the southwest and west that morning as the storms gathered. I’m wondering if a geothermal/hydrothermal plume could have heated the surrounding water enough to cause a moving microclimate event, with rapidly warming ocean temperatures driving a current of updrafts migrating north and east. Just a thought. Thanks.