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Resuspended volcanic ash from the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai eruption

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-17 Dust RGB and Ash RGB images [click to play animation | MP4]

GOES-17 (GOES-West) Dust RGB and Ash RGB images (above) revealed a plume of resuspended volcanic ash — from the 1912 eruption of Novarupta-Katmai — moving southeastward across the Shelikof Strait toward Kodiak Island in southern Alaska on 02 October 2021. The remnant ash on the surface was lofted by strong northwesterly winds along  the rear edge of Hurricane Force and Storm Force lows in the Gulf of Alaska (surface analyses), and imagery suggested that the ash  plume (shades of pink to magenta) began to develop just after 0600 UTC. At Buoy 46077 in the Shelikof Strait, a peak wind gust of 35 knots occurred around 14 UTC.

Both RGB image combinations use the same ABI spectral bands, but in this case the plume of airborne ash showed up a bit better on the Dust RGB  (below) because of how the 3 components of that RGB are scaled.

GOES-17 Dust RGB and Ash RGB images at 1200 UTC [click to enlarge]

Categories: General interpretation, GOES-17