FINAL BIG ISLAND ASH SCATTERING

I spent the night at the Volcano House, and my room had a view of Halemaumau:

If you peer closely, you might just see that rainbow originating from that crater. At night I had my final ash scattering, accompanied by a group of tourists who invited me to their dinner.

Earlier yesterday, driving from the Four Seasons Hualalai to the national park, I stopped in Kau, for this is where Pearl and I met just about 47 years ago. She was a nurse in Pahala and I was a process engineer at the Hutchinson Sugar Company in Naalehu. I found a vantage point on a hill just outside of Naalehu, below which sugar was processed. That pier is now in disrepair, but we now and then fished from it. It was rumored that a large sea bass of several hundred pounds lived under the pier. In the far background is Pahala.

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The Dow Jones Industrials dropped 77 to 9321, and world markets also were mostly down. Oil crashed 4% to $67.51/barrel and gold sunk $11/toz to $949. There are rumblings in the Senate that the cap and trade bill should wait until next year. Who cares, as this legislation is so seriously flawed anyway. But, certainly, President Obama wants something to bring to the Copenhagen gathering in December.

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Phew, I returned to my apartment, and all is well The fish and plants survived my one week absence and former Hurricane Felicia. The center of the storm actually passed over this building a little more than 36 hours ago.

Hurricane Guillermo is now up to 115 MPH, but, according to www.wunderground.com, should diminish over the next few days, as follows:

initial      15/0530z 18.4n 130.8w   100 kt  12hr VT     15/1200z 18.7n 132.3w   100 kt  24hr VT     16/0000z 19.3n 135.0w    90 kt  36hr VT     16/1200z 19.9n 137.6w    70 kt  48hr VT     17/0000z 20.5n 140.2w    60 kt  72hr VT     18/0000z 22.2n 145.3w    40 kt  96hr VT     19/0000z 24.0n 150.5w    30 kt 120hr VT     20/0000z 26.0n 156.0w    25 kt...remnant low

(Sorry, the columns looked good when created, but the details are not worthy of  your time.)

Maka, far west of Hawaii, is now only a tropical depression at 30 MPH, but, you can see it remains in warm waters, and will almost surely strengthen into a typhoon, but will continue to move west away from Hawaii.  However, there are two disturbances in the Atlantic.