'Lahaina noon' effect to begin next week

By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor

You don't have to be in Lahaina to experience a "lahaina noon," but you do have to be in the tropics.

A lahaina noon, which occurs twice a year, is when the sun is exactly overhead — something that never happens in temperate or arctic zones around the world.

So, if you are standing outside at directly the right moment, you will not cast a shadow.

Since there was no popular term for the phenomenon, the Bishop Museum planetarium sponsored a contest 10 years ago to select a name. "Lahaina noon" was the winner, since the lahaina means "cruel sun" in Hawaiian.

Times for the lahaina noon vary from island to island and town to town, depending on how close a location's latitude is to the Tropic of Cancer. Hawai'i's first lahaina noon of 2002 will be at 12:17 p.m. next Saturday in Hilo, and the second will occur three minutes later in Kona. It will occur in Lahaina, Maui, at 12:24 p.m. May 24, and three minutes earlier in Kahului; at 12:28 p.m. May 26 in Honolulu, and at 12:34 p.m. May 31 in Lihu'e.

The event will be repeated along the island chain July 11-24.

For a complete schedule of lahaina noon times, see www.bishopmuseum.org/planetarium/lahainanoon.html.