000 volcanic lava flow island12/4/2023 ![]() “People need to plan for several hours if going in that area,” he said.ĭaniel K. Magno said the county would be making some tweaks to make it flow better. The first night the new lava viewing area worked pretty well, but Talmadge Magno with the Hawai‘i County Civil Defense Agency said Thursday night there was some congestion because fog obstructed the lava flows, and some people were trying to do U-turns to go the wrong way on the one-way setup.Ībout 3,500 vehicles used the lava-viewing road on Thursday. The leading edge of the lava flow also is currently 2.25 miles from Old Saddle Road, where Hawai’i County has set up a lava viewing area that runs one-way down a 4.5-mile stretch of Old Saddle Road on Pōhakuloa Training Area property. While the observatory is uncertain where the lava will got, Hon said: “What we want to make sure of is when it is within 24 to 48 hours of the highway that we give ample warning to Civil Defense, and the Department of Highways and things like that to make sure that all the safety measures are put in place.” “Models run out as far as two weeks from the beginning of the eruption still donʻt have it touching the Saddle Road, but these are only approximations though and a lot of things that could happen in that flat area,” Hon said. But he said the lava flow continues to spread out, and observatory modeling shows the flow to continue to spread even more and thicken and go very slowly. The main Saddle Road climbs there onto the slopes of Mauna Kea and is out of reach of the lava,” he said.īut now the lava is “out too far,” with too many variables, for scientists to be able to forecast if or when it will reach Saddle Road. ![]() “If it does go west, it will go along the Old Saddle Road. Hon said as the flow continues, it could either go east or west, with east being the more likely scenario.īut it could still turn west, which is what everyone should be rooting for because the lava flow going in that direction would be unlikely to reach Saddle Road. ![]() The lava flow now is over 20 feet thick, so it clearly isn’t behaving like water. “If you put water on the ground right now where the lava flow is, it would roll to the east,” Hon said. Bird’s-eye view of Mauna Loa creeping toward Saddle Road during Blue Hawaiian helicopter tour. Right now the lava is headed toward the intersection of Saddle Road and Old Saddle Road. The lava flow is currently moving at just 75 feet or so per hour while it is on relatively flat ground at the divide. Hon said he wanted to make sure people understood this because “I think there continues to be some anxiety because it is a big mountain and it is erupting.” “People who live on the southwest side of Mauna Loa volcano, down in south Kona and Ka’u, are out of danger.” This discrepancy exists because a higher-standing section of crater floor (yellow) around the former active lava lake has not yet been overflowed with new lava. The current laser rangefinder measurement (available at ) places the new lava lake depth at 274 meters (899 feet), about 8 meters (26 feet) above the level of the cooled lava from the 2020-2022 summit eruption.“The activity that had gone a little bit to the southwest side of the caldera - and didn’t actually enter the southwest rift zone on the first night - is done. Although this eruption has expanded the footprint of post-2018 lava within Halema‘uma‘u crater, citizen scientists may note that this full extent value is smaller than that at the end of the 2021–22 eruption: 295 acres (119 hectares). The full extent of new lava from this eruption, totaling both the active lava lake (red) and flows that have crusted over (pink) is 277 acres (112 hectares). The extent of the active lava lake-the area in red-is 218 acres (88 hectares) part of this area is comprised of the active lava lake footprint from the end of the 2021–22 eruption, which has filled with new lava that upwelled from below. Lava from these dome fountains is flowing laterally across the rest of the crater floor. Multiple eruptive vents on the eastern floor of Halema‘uma‘u crater are effusing directly into a lava lake that sits atop them, with the vents taking the form of dome fountains. This reference map depicts activity on the second day of the eruption, based on measurements taken from the crater rim at approximately 9:00 a.m. A new eruption at the summit of Kīlauea volcano began at approximately 4:34 p.m.
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