The University of Hawaiʻi has unveiled a dashboard that provides detailed weather reports across the state, offering the public real-time data of the local weather, including specific data for Hawaiʻi's microclimates.
The dashboard, developed by scientists at UH Mānoa, is part of the statewide Hawaiʻi Mesonet project. The National Science Foundation awarded UH about $1.3 million in 2021 for the project to better understand and forecast weather in Hawaiʻi.
About 70 monitoring stations around the state are being used to collect that data, and another 30 or so are planned to be installed.
The stations “capture temperature, rainfall, wind, humidity, solar radiation and soil moisture and are updated every 15 minutes, creating one of the most comprehensive and timely weather data resources available in the state,” UH said in a news release.
Those who view the Hawaiʻi Mesonet Live Data Access can see specific data at each of the telemetered monitoring stations, as well as the location of planned stations. It also includes data for American Samoa.
One of the goals of the project is to improve disaster response and climate resilience.
Tom Giambelluca, the lead for the Hawaiʻi Mesonet project and professor in UH's Department of Geography and Environment, said the data could have improved the emergency response to the Maui fires in 2023.
“ West Maui did not have a single telemeter or transmitted wind measurement, so nobody had access to an estimate or a measurement of the wind speed that day,” Giambelluca said. “Wind was an important factor in starting the fire and spreading the fire that day, so having that information would've been valuable.”
The stations can be found around Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Maui and Hawaiʻi Island, and their locations were chosen to fill in the gaps left by existing weather monitoring stations from other entities.
Giambelluca also said that fire-prone areas, those at risk of flooding, and areas where the weather changes quickly and over short distances were also considerations for where to put the monitoring stations.
Hawaiʻi Mesonet data can also potentially serve to replace some of the federal weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, which could be threatened under the Trump administration.
“We are seeing signs of that happening, and so it is really important for us, as this happens, that we have our own network that is locally designed and locally operated,” Giambelluca said.
That could help protect it from any federal cuts going forward, though the state would have to provide resources to keep it operational.
The project would require around $600,000 annually to stay operational.
