For the first time time in 38 years, the world’s largest active volcano has started erupting!
An eruption at Mauna Loa began at about 2330 on 27 November in Moku‘aweoweo, the summit caldera, prompting HVO to raise the Aviation Color Code to Red (the highest level on a four-color scale) and the Volcano Alert Level to Warning (the highest level on a four-level scale). A thermal anomaly and a plume of sulfur dioxide gas were identified in satellite images at the onset of the eruption, according to NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park closed the summit area to visitors. Lava erupted from a fissure in the caldera and by 0127 on 28 November lava had overflowed the caldera walls. During an overflight at about 0630 scientists confirmed that the eruption had moved from the summit to the Northeast Rift Zone, where three fissures opened at a high elevation. The fissures fed several lava flows that traveled N and NE; the flows were active in the “saddle” area between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea and were not threatening any populated areas. Lava fountains along the fissures were as tall as 30-60 m, though most were only a few meters tall. Lava flows from fissures 1 and 2 traveled downslope and stalled about 18 km from the Saddle Road; the two fissures were inactive by 1330. Sulfur dioxide emissions were approximately 250,000 tonnes per day.
Fissure 3, at the lowest elevation of the NE fissures, issued the longest lava flows. Lava flows crossed the Mauna Loa Weather Observatory Road at about 2000 on 28 November; by 0700 on 29 November the flow front was about 10 km from the Saddle Road. Lava fountains at Fissure 3 were 25 m high in the morning on 29 November but had grown to 40-50 m tall in the afternoon. Fissure 4, downslope of Fissure 3, opened at about 1930 and produced lava fountains that rose 5-10 m high. There was no activity in the summit caldera, nor along the Southwest Rift Zone. Gas plumes from the activity drifted N. – Source: Smithsonian Inst.
Sources:
@shanesgettinghandy on YT
Windy.com
Wikipedia
RaspberryShake
USGS
Crelosa (Crelosa.com)
University of Hawai’i Institute for Astronomy
Google Earth
Sound is not live, but added for effect.
Thumbnail Photo by: Juan Francisco – https://www.flickr.com/photos/190923371@N05/51298064140/
