Eruption of Pavlof volcano, Alaska
28 March 2016 06:01 UTC
The Pavlof volcano, located on a remote Alaskan island, has erupted sending ash plumes more than 20,000ft into the air.
04 May 2023
28 March 2016
By Vesa Nietosvaara, Jose Prieto (EUMETSAT) & Dan Lindsey (NOAA)
The Pavlof volcano on a Alaskan Aleutian island, abruptly erupted on 27 March, sending plumes of ash more than 20,000ft into the air and triggering a flight warning.
The volcano began erupting in the afternoon, local time, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory. The observatory also indicated that the ash moved northeast after the eruption and seismic activity was reported. The drifting ash cloud extended from the southern Bering Sea into interior Alaska and northern parts of Canada.
EUMETSAT Metop-A satellite was able to capture the ash cloud drifting from the volcano on 28 March at 06:01 UTC (Figure 1). In the AVHRR 3.7 micron image the ash cloud is seen as white plume extending towards northeast. The red colours indicate the pixels affected by the lava.
The eruption and the volcanic cloud is far on the limb of Himawari. The loop on Himawari-8 Band 3 (0.64 microns) gives almost a vertical cross section of the volcanic cloud. The overshooting tops and the gravity waves that propagate downwind and the shadows cast by those overshooting tops can be seen in this animation (provided by Dan Lindsey, NOAA).
The Himawari-8 Volcanic Ash RGB product (Figure 3) shows the spread of ash in the atmosphere in the direction of northeast. The yellow and orange pixels indicate the location of the ash.
Additional content
Pavlof’s Unexpected Eruption in Alaska Spews Ash 20,000 Feet High (WIRED)
Alaska Volcano Observatory
