Geographic Patterns of The Physical Environment

Chapter 2

Topography

The island of Maui is a part of the state of Hawaii and is the second largest island in the Hawaiian Islands. Also, Maui is the 17^th largest island in United States. Maui is 727.2 miles and in 2002 it had a population of 117,644. It is located at 20’48N 156’20’W on the earth surface. Maui’s unique topography is based on volcanoes. Since it is formed from two vocanic mountains, the wide variety of landscapes surround Maui. The volcanoses were so close to each other, that lava flowed on their flanks.

 Climate

Hawaii has two seasons which means mild and uniform temperatures everywhere except high elevation. These climate is characterized as high humidity, extensive cloud formations, rainfalls, and dominant wind flow. Rainfall showers are very common, some are very heavy and others are just a sudden sprinkle. Sometimes thunder and lightening follow the rainfall; however, it does not last very long. Most of the summer the temperature is very high accompanied with humid and hot winds. (Wikipedia.com)

Landforms

The major landforms of Maui are Puukukui volcano (5,788feet) at the west-northwest end of the island to Red Hill and Haleakala Crater (1o,023feet) at the south.

Throughout the Island, volcanoes dominate the landscape. Volcanic mountains stretch 3100 miles from Hawaii to the Aleutin Trench in the North Pacific Ocean.

Sources
http://www.wikipedia.com/
http://www.maui.com/