Mt. Redoubt volcanic eruption
1.The large viewing angle from the MTSAT-1R satellite offered a nice depiction of the initial volcanic eruption plume (below).
2.A 500-meter resolution MODIS true color Red/Green/Blue (RGB) composite image (below) shows a signature of ash fall on top of the pristine white snow cover of the Alaska Range (as denoted by the lighter brown tint). A higher resolution version is available from the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
The volcanic plume could also be seen on imagery from the WSR-88D radar located near Kenai, Alaska (below). Surface ash falls of 1/8 to 1/4 inch were reported at Skwentna (northwest of Anchorage), and ash was reported on all airport surfaces at Talkeetna (north of Anchorage) — in fact, ash was reported on the ground as far north as Healy.
4.A sequence of 1-km resolution NOAA-15, NOAA-17 and NOAA-18 10.8 µm IR images (below) shows a few of the initial volcanic plume features (circled in cyan) at 4 different times — 06:52 UTC, just after the initial eruption; 11:46 UTC, with an elongated plume which had drifted off to the northeast of Redoubt; 13:27 UTC, with a more dense plume feature that appeared to be spreading out in a NW-SE direction; and 14:30 UTC, showing another dense plume that had spread out even further in the N-S direction.
5.A sequence of 1-km resolution NOAA-15, NOAA-17 and NOAA-18 10.8 µm IR images (below) shows a few of the initial volcanic plume features (circled in cyan) at 4 different times — 06:52 UTC, just after the initial eruption; 11:46 UTC, with an elongated plume which had drifted off to the northeast of Redoubt; 13:27 UTC, with a more dense plume feature that appeared to be spreading out in a NW-SE direction; and 14:30 UTC, showing another dense plume that had spread out even further in the N-S direction.
6.The Mt. Redoubt volcano (located about 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska) produced a series of explosive eruptions beginning around 06:38 UTC on 23 March 2009. GOES-11 10.7 µm IR images (above) showed a few of the volcanic eruption clouds, which exhibited IR brightness temperature values of -50 to -58º C (yellow to red colors). Note that there was a 2 hour gap in the imagery, with no GOES-11 images available from 08:00 to 10:15 UTC — this was due to the fact that the GOES-11 satellite was in a Spring eclipse period, where the satellite was in the Earths shadow (and the solar panels could not generate the power necessary to operate the instruments).
7.AWIPS images of the GOES IR Satellite data (below) demonstrated that the substitution of GOES-12 (GOES-East) imagery during the GOES-11 (GOES-West) eclipse period did not allow the continual tracking of the volcanic plume features (the images with missing data and the jagged edges are from GOES-12).
8.Another explosive eruption of the Mt. Redoubt volcano occurred around 17:24 UTC on 26 March 2009, sending ash to an estimated 65,000 feet. GOES-11 visible images (below) show the volcanic eruption cloud.
===== 24 MARCH UPDATE =====
(courtesy of Mike Pavolonis, NOAA/NESDIS/ASPB)
Shown below are some AVHRR ash retrievals (ash concentration, ash height, and ash effective particle radius) from the 23-24 March eruptions. All of these AVHRR products will be produced operationally by NOAA/NESDIS starting sometime next Spring (2010). Ash shows up as red in the accompanying false color images (upper left panels). Notice that the retrieved ash particle sizes are fairly large (mean effective radius of 7-10 micron). This may be one of the reasons that the 11 - 12 micron brightness temperature difference (BTD) signal was weak (very few negative BTDs were present in the imagery). The presence of larger ash particles may also speak to the relatively quick dissipation of the visible ash cloud as seen in the imagery. Of course multi-layered meteorological clouds complicate matters further. Our retrieval takes into account the lower level meteorological clouds (limited by certain assumptions), but the complicated nature of the scene still results in additional uncertainty.
Nevertheless, the results indicate that the largest amount of ash (only including ash that is not obscured by higher level hydrometeors), 155 kilo-tons, was seen after the 7:41 PM AKDT eruption on March 23 (03:41 UTC on March 24). We estimated the maximum height of the ash-dominated portion of the various volcanic clouds to be around 8-km, which is about 1 km shy of the Anchorage tropopause. The ice/SO2 dominated portion of the cloud likely went much higher.
CIMSS Satellite Blog
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wow i just saw this better laet then neverlol ty
tinsnanna 2 years ago
This is very interesting. I live in Anchor Point on the Kenai peninsula.
We experienced this eruption. Your efforts of education are appreciated.
ursushoribilisron 2 years ago