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Tofua volcano emits ash cloud [1]

Nuku'alofa, Tonga

Monday, April 29, 2024 - 17:59

An ash cloud was observed being emitted from the Tofua Volcano rising to a height of 4km - 6km on Sunday 29 April 2024 at 10:00pm, and recorded by the Japanese weather satellite HIMAWARI-9.

The Tonga Geological services reported that the volcanic activity, which commenced on Friday, 26 April, has exhibited an unusual pattern, with continuous monitoring revealing fluctuation in event frequency

A Marine Hazard Alert was issued today advising all Mariners to sail beyond 1.08 nautical miles from Tofua Volcano until further notice.

At the present time it poses low risk to the Vava'u and Ha'apai communities.

Figure 1a - 1d, shows the movement of detected ash cloud from 10:00pm to 2:00am. Photo: Tonga Geological Services.

The ash cloud moved in the north-westerly direction and continued to remain in the atmosphere and, was no longer observed after 2:00am this morning.

The latest satellite image by HIMAWARI-9 was captured at 4:50am this morning (Figure 2). Meanwhile, monitoring of Sulphur Dioxide Gas (SO2) from these volcanic activities is currently ongoing.

Figure 3: Sulphur Dioxide monitoring on Windy.corn showed the plume of emitted S02 Gas from Tofua Volcano and it is following the direction of wind (apricot color). S02 Level value can be found on the bottom right legend. Photo: Tonga Geological Services.
Figure 3 showed an apricot color plume which indicated the level of SO2 being released and at 5:00am, the plume moved in a south-western direction (wind direction).

"Over the past 24 hours, ongoing monitoring of the Tofua Volcano has indicated a slight decrease in thermal anomalies with only 14 events recorded by VOLCAT, compared to 16 events in the previous observations," reported Tonga Geological Services.

Tofua is located 76.1 km west of Pangai, Ha’apai at Latitude & Longitude 19.75°S, 175.07°W.

Monitoring of the activity is ongoing with daily notices issued on the status of the eruption.

Figure 1: VOLCAT shows 14 volcanic eruptions and 1 ash event from the past 24 hours. The last eruption recorded was at 1:45am, 29 April 2024. Photo: Tonga Geological Services.
Earlier observations showed a total of 45 volcanic eruptions (red dots) were detected since Friday 26 April. Photo: Tonga Geological Services

Figure 2: Satellite Images from Sentinel-2 and Copernicus (left), with Sentinel-2 and MODIS that captured the thermal activity in the Tofua Crater on the 26 of April 2024. Photo: Tonga Geological Services.

Satellite images of Tofua were also captured on the same day by Sentinel-2, together with the infrared image that captured the thermal anomaly in the volcano.

Figure 2: Satellite Images from Sentinel-2 and Copernicus (left), with Sentinel-2 and MODIS that captured the thermal activity in the Tofua Crater on 26 April 2024. Photo: Tonga Geological Services.
Pacific Islands [2]
Tonga [3]
Tofua volcano [4]
Tonga Geological Services [5]
volcanic activity in the Pacific Ocean [6]
Natural events [7]

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