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Eruption of the Ubinas volcano in southern Peru

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 Ash, SO2 and CIMSS Natural Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Ash, SO2 and CIMSS Natural Color RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

A sequence of GOES-16 (GOES-East) Ash, SO2 and CIMSS Natural Color Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images (above) showed the volcanic cloud following an eruption of Ubinas in southern Peru on 19 July 2019. The volcanic plume was rich in both ash and SO2.

A plot of surface data from La Paz, Bolivia (below) indicated that the visibility dropped to 3 miles around 16 UTC as the volcanic cloud was drifting over that area (located about 150 miles downwind of Ubinas).

Time series of surface data from La Paz, Bolivia [click to enlarge]

Time series of surface data from La Paz, Bolivia [click to enlarge]

Terra MODIS Ash Probability, Ash Loading, Ash Height and Ash Effective Radius from the NOAA/CIMSS Volcanic Cloud Monitoring site (below) confirmed the high amounts of ash loading (of generally small ash particles) — with maximum radiometrically-retrieved Ash Height values in the 18-20 km range.

Terra MODIS Ash Probability, Ash Loading, Ash Height and Ash Effective Radius at 1440 UTC [click to enlarge]

Terra MODIS Ash Probability, Ash Loading, Ash Height and Ash Effective Radius at 1440 UTC [click to enlarge]

GOES-16 retrieved Ash Height values (below) were in general agreement with those obtained using the higher-resolution MODIS data.

GOES-16 Ash Height images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-16 Ash Height images [click to play animation | MP4]

Categories: GOES-16, MODIS, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Terra, Volcanic activity