Diurnal Weather Patterns-— LEOPOLD 
95 
the less frequent kona storms for important 
sources of rainfall 
, The subsidence inversion of temperature oc¬ 
curs at higher elevations over Honolulu than 
over Los Angeles. The inversion has a diurnal 
change in height similar to certain coastal sta¬ 
tions in Southern California. The local sea breeze 
shows up only on the lee or well-protected parts 
of Oahu and Lanai. Because of the small size of 
the islands and the considerable height of the 
inversion, diurnal changes in this height as a 
result of convergence in the sea breeze seem 
a less likely explanation for Honolulu than for 
Los Angeles. 
Diurnal changes in surface wind speeds are 
consistent over the islands. The nocturnal speeds 
are very much less than those over the open 
ocean. This is apparently explained quite ade¬ 
quately by nocturnal stability in the lower layers. 
Wind speeds aloft increase slightly at night 
and the magnitude of this increase corresponds 
to that which would be expected by the changes 
in height of the inversion. 
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