Eruption of Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala

By Scott Bachmeier • 1 February 2018

GOES-16 Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm, top), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm, middle) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm, bottom) images [click to animate]

After a series of occasional weak emissions during the previous month, a small eruption of Volcán de Fuego began during the pre-dawn hours on 01 February 2018. The thermal anomaly or “hot spot” could be seen on GOES-16 (GOES-East) Near-Infrared “Snow/Ice” (1.61 µm), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 µm) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 µm) images (above). In terms of the two Near-Infrared bands, even though the 1.61 µm band has better spatial resolution (1 km at satellite sub-point), the 2-km resolution 2.24 µm band is spectrally located closer to the peak emitted radiance of very hot features such as active volcanoes or large fires (spectral response function plots).

Multi-spectral retrievals of Ash Cloud Height from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (below) indicated that volcanic ash extended to altitudes in the 4-6 km range (yellow to green enhancement), with isolated 7 km pixels at 1315 UTC. The product also showed the effect of a burst of southwesterly winds just after 11 UTC, which began to transport some of the ash northeastward (as mentioned in the 1332 UTC advisory).

GOES-16 Ash Height product [click to animate]

At 1624 UTC, a 30-meter resolution Landsat-8 False-color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) image viewed using RealEarth (below) showed the primary ash plume drifting to the west, with some lower-altitude ash spreading out northward and southward. A thermal anomaly was also evident at the summit of the volcano.

Landsat-8 False-color RGB image [click to enlarge]

Categories: GOES-16, Landsat, RealEarth, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Volcanic activity

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Eruption of Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala