Look, look, up in the sky!

It's: a) a bird, b) a plane or c) tons of volcanic haze brought to you courtesy of the southeasterly or "kona" winds that have been blowing toward O'ahu for the past few days.

If you went with answer "c," go to the head of your atmospheric observation class.

To all you visitors who decided to come to Waikíkí for a winter vacation: While the sky might look like it normally does in Los Angeles almost anytime of the year, or in Chicago on a hot, humid summer day, haze so thick you almost need a cane knife to slice through, it is not normal for Hawai'i.

The good news is that as voggy as it is, Jonathan Hoag, a forecaster with the National Weather Service Honolulu Office, said he's seen worse.

The other good news is that a cold front that was about 80 miles northwest of Kaua'i at noon yesterday will cause the southeasterly winds of the past several days to shift to southwesterlies, blowing most the volcanic haze back toward the Big Island from whence it came.

The cold front should then lead to a return of northeasterly trade winds by the weekend, which will blow the volcanic haze, also known as "vog," out to sea instead of up the island chain, Hoag said.

The evening low temperatures around O'ahu have been in the range of 65 to 70 degrees the past couple of days. The approaching cold front may drive nighttime lows down into the lower 60s, Hoag said.

"We need light winds for really low temperatures," he said.

Hoag said his office hasn't exactly been swarmed by callers wanting to know when the skies will be clear again.

"It's not as bad as it has been some other times," he said.

But it is heavy enough that the cloud of vog shows up in satellite images from space extending all the way up from the Big Island as far as O'ahu, Hoag said.

"It hasn't made it as far as Kaua'i and we don't anticipate that it will with the cold front moving in," he said. "But still, there's a massive amount of haze visible" in the satellite images, Hoag said.