ARL News

Augustine Volcano (Alaska) Near to Eruption – HYSPLIT at the Hub of Activity

 

January 11, 2006

Augustine volcano, about 300 km southwest of Anchorage, has just been classified Code Red by the USGS, meaning that “the current activity may be emitting ash, steam, and volcanic gases.” This is based on seismic information. The volcano has been classified as Code Yellow for about a month, and was only recently upgraded to Code Orange. In preparation for an expected eruption, the Alaska Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) is using HYSPLIT for its trajectory predictions. ARL staff are being used as the experts “on call.” A new web-based access system has been set up – at:

https://www.ready.noaa.gov/READY_traj_alaska.php

In parallel with the Alaska VAAC activity, HYSPLIT is being run every 6 hours at NCEP, providing high temporal resolution (hourly) output, for the eastern US VAAC.

Augustine is one of the volcanoes addressed on the ARL hypothetical eruptions web page https://www.ready.noaa.gov/ready2-bin/ashhypo.pl.

Contact information: Barbara Stunder
Phone: (301) 713-0295
e-mail: barbara.stunder@noaa.gov