First the heat, then the tides

Since mid-May, Honolulu has set more than a dozen record high temperatures, with Monday marking the sixth-consecutive day of breaking or tying daily record highs that date back to 1890. Monday’s 90 degrees tied the record set for the date in 1995.

According to the National Weather Service, warmer-than-average sea-surface temps are playing a role in our hotter-than-normal temperatures. In addition to more muggy weather, another round of the season’s “king tides” is slated to roll in for about week starting Friday — the first official day of summer. They could bring higher-than-normal water levels and some flooding to low-lying areas.

Return of the Lurline

Hawaii in the Teens is nothing like it was in the Fifties — except that the Lurline is back. Matson decided to go with an old favorite name of the shipping company’s founder, William Matson, for its new cargo ship.

The new Lurline was christened Saturday, the sixth Matson ship with that name; of those, the passenger ship SS Lurline probably was best known, 60 years back. This one is not so glamorous, but it’s the largest container/rolling-cargo ship ever built in the U.S. — and that’s a bragging point, too.