Kīlauea Update, Friday, June 1, 2018, in the morning

not the quaking earth

ohelo kaulaau shake

mejiro forage

Maintaining a modicum of stability (pun intended, I think...), while the hale wobblescreaks more periodically than desirable.  The view from the kitchen window ma kai includes an ʻōhelo kaulāʻau, placed not in a tree as its name would have us think, but growing out of the earth on the side of a tumulus, thinly covered with ash, grass, leaf litter, and what-la.  The ʻōhelo shrub is perhaps six feet tall, and deciduous.  It lost its foliage several weeks ago, and is now adorned with fresh green liko (young shoots or growth) transforming into lau (leaves).  Hiding under the new leaves are clusters of pua (flowers).  Mejiro (Japanese white-eye), a small olive green bird with a white circle around its eyes, climb and flutter under and through the branches seeking nectar and bugs.  

And this has what to do with ʻōlaʻi, luaʻi, luaʻi pele, pōhāhā, uahi ʻawa, kūkaepele, and māhu, one might query?  Well...all of those named phenomena:  earthquakes, eruptions, lava flows, tephra (volcanic ejecta falling from the sky), sulphur smoke, sulphur, and volcanic steam, all of them and more, over millennia, have shaped the lands on which we dwell.  They all influence what we see and experience.  And theyʻre all interconnected in that Papakū Makawalu way (please google for more info).

And we muse, wondering, what next?  What will Pelehonuamea gift us with today? This is a challenging time, this not-knowing.  This be-here-nowness.  Unsettling, exciting, all of it.  Halemaʻumaʻu is ever-changing these days.  Steam-ash-steam-and-ash, varying intensities of each.  We watch webcams and wonder.  Thatʻs all we can do.  There is no script or program. At 855 this morning from Volcano House (dark ash left, white steam right):

And a bit earlier today from HVO, at 7am:

And below, the ʻōlaʻi up here for the last day or so.  Some days are busier than others, and thankfully the majority are of a magnitude too small to feel, but still, so far since waking today, Iʻve felt three or four.

and down there, in Puna ma kai, Pele remains impressively busy too

Pretty sure you folks have been looking at photos and video.  Mindbogglingly amazing.  Now thereʻs at last, a Mandatory (for real) Evacuation Order for the majority of Leilani Estates in Keahialaka.  And evacuation orders for other communities whose roads may soon be cut off.  Just before 9 this morning, a flow was about a half mile mau ka of the "Four Corners" intersection, by Kapoho Cone.  Try play with various layers on the Civil Defense map, using the icons at the upper right after the map is opened:

Civil Defense Lava Flow Map

Hawaiʻi Fire Dept, Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Though the fountains of a few hundred feet high continue, mercifully there have been fewer earthquakes.  

FLASHBACK to Kapoho village in 1960 (My second eruption. I watched it with my family from the porch of Kapoho School).  Kumukahi is to the right.

On the map below, that dark circular area near Kumukahi is Kapoho Cone, a very prominent landmark 200-400 years old according to the 1991 USGS Map I-2225.

Kapoho Cone occupies the SE corner of the intersection of Highways 132 (ma uka of Kapoho) and 137 (the road parallel to the coast):

And a thermal image, below, depicting the scope of the flows.  White = hot.

Think Iʻll end for now.  With thanks and gratitude to all the hardworking people from various agencies whose works make this blog possible.

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC