
Two short eruptions of volcano Popocatépetl
23 November 2017 20:00 UTC–24 November 08:00 UTC


For more than 30 years Popocatépetl, situated south-west of Mexico City, has produced powerful explosions at irregular intervals. On 23-24 November 2017 two such short eruptions were observed.
05 May 2023
23 November 2017
By HansPeter Roesli (Switzerland) and Jochen Kerkmann (EUMETSAT)
The eruptions can be seen on the Airmass RGB and Ash/SO2 RGB image sequences from GOES-16’s ABI imaging radiometer.
The Ash/SO2 sequence, 23 November 20:00 UTC–24 November 08:00 UTC, shows the classic red to yellow-coloured plume that essentially points to ash as its main content.
The Airmass RGB animation, 23 November 20:00 UTC–24 November 08:00 UTC, quite surprisingly, shows a mostly neutral coloured plume and, for most of the time, lacks the pink colour that usually signals the presence of SO2 in a dry atmosphere, which was manifest here.
The two images from 23 November at 22:23 UTC (Figure 1 & 2) clearly demonstrate that beyond ash there was some SO2 involved (red arrows), at least towards the end of the first eruption.
Note: NOAA's GOES-16 satellite has not been declared operational and its data are preliminary and undergoing testing.
Additional content
Popocatepetl volcano news & eruption update (Volcano Discovery)
Mexico City volcano ERUPTS: Huge plume of smoke blasted into air amid fears of BIG ONE (The Express)