Now to SMOG!!

[bmary]

Originally Posted by JoeyT

Mar, please tell me you're kidding! Vog from the BI all the way over to Kauai????????

Years ago, when the vog was not as bad as it is now, I heard that pilots could see it all the way to Midway. That's way farther than even Kauai.

[rentalpro]

No I don't work for the Dept of Tourism. Just 31yrs here.

No Chinese whatever smog. The VOG you heard of recently was BAD on the Big Island of Hawaii...where the volcano was experiencing a 3day STEAM venting thing..that spits sulpher fog (VOG) into the air..which drifted to Oahu. But it was gone in a couple days...and we are back to glorious blue with low hung lacy clouds.

Seldom thunderstorms...they don't happen over large volumes of water apparently. In 30yrs..I can recall twice.

[hotzcatz]

The Big Island seems to be getting the heaviest vog but since we are closest to Pele that makes sense. (Pele is the goddess of fire and lives in Halemaumau crater among other places). The volcanologists say this new emissions phase of increased sulphur is likely to become "normal" for the next long while.

Yesterday we were up at Kawaihae above Kailua in the Kona district (as opposed to Kailua on Oahu) and there was a bit of voggy haze there. My sinuses are still all gummy and stuffed up from it. We looked towards Kailua town and it wasn't visible at all through the haze. This was with some fairly stiff trades blowing, too. The vog has been getting bad enough on this island to kill plants and some farmers have lost entire crops.

[leilaniguy]

Oahu may not get much lightening, but on the Big Island we have a few storms every year, sometimes knocking out the power.

[abcde]

Here is another website with more data on the air quality for the islands (you can select by island, by NO2, SO2, etc.) :

Daily Air Quality Data (http://hawaii.gov/doh/air-quality/main.html - broken link)

Just as a canary in a coal mine, the fact that people are leaving (moving from) here (vog being a common reason), should tell you something. Ignore at your own risk.