Kīlauea Update, Monday, June 18, 2018, Yesterday: Clear afternoon at Kaluapele

So.  I did something bad yesterday.  (With sincere apologies to pn and dg)...  Most Sundays Iʻm on a conference call, helping edit a book.  Two hours.  With all the what-la hoop-la going on up here, I get distracted.  And itʻs NOT that the reading and commenting are boring.  Far from it.  Itʻs just that when you look Live Stream Full Screen at Halemaʻumaʻu, sometimes cannot help. I know I posted this before:

Live Stream Halemaʻumaʻu

and it looks like this

 

To see it Full Screen on your monitor click on the square broken-edged box at bottom right, just below the red bar.  (E.  Some people nono how.  Be nice.)

Returning to my original train of thought... I was glancing at first, then at times watching intently, because was so clear the weather: 

Just before I did the screen shot above, I watched not one, but several koaʻe flying around, checking things out, and some even landing on that dark broken shard of kaulu at the lower left.  Crazy.  Koaʻe are long-tailed tropic birds.  They nest on pali (cliffs) and feed at sea.  Theyʻve lived at Kaluapele for how long...and in crannies on Puʻupuaʻi at Kīlauea iki too.  Their long tail feathers were used to fashion some kāhili, the feathered standards of the aliʻi.

Hāmākua, the district on this island, kuʻu one hānau, is noted in song:

Hāmākua, i nā pali, i nā pali lele koaʻe

The pali in Hāmākua, the pali where koaʻe soar

If you be outside...pay attention, youʻll see them soaring erratically playfully, their white bodies contrasting beautifully with the sapphire of ocean under the lovely blue of sky or the other way around...but... I diverge, tangentially.  Again...

How can one NOT be distracted by all of this.  And if ʻōlaʻi, many many a day is the price of admission...

And then...because sometimes meteorological conditions are just right, we have ash storms and puahiohio lehu (ash-laden whirlwinds).  Above pic, right hand edge.

And a very similar phenomenon, one we saw with regularity at the coast as vigorous plumes of hydrochloric acid-laden steam rose from the shore at lava entry points, and temperature gradients and winds were just right, were slow moving funnels of steam hanging from the plume...  Kind of, but not quite like the one below yesterday morning, with the wispy bearded man peering in, arm extended upwards...

DANGER!!! Absolutely mesmerizing!  Who needs NetFlix?  Well, at night, maybe, because when the light goes out the camera goes dark.

And this morning, still abed, deciding whether or not to get cracking, She encourages with gentle shakingrolling...Upstairs I dash (well...lumber is more like it these days) to look:

The relatively gentle, uniquely moving, wakeup exploquake was about 613a.  And I must note, of late, the beauteousness of the billows.  Lehu-poor, guessing lots of steam and gases.  When we walk at the Golf Course, the winds seem to carry extremely fine, EXTREMELY fine tongue-coating ash.  And itʻs an eye irritant too.  I breathe with mouth slightly agape when I walk.  Thatʻs why.

So itʻs one of those beautiful things with obscured hazards.  Or something.

And yes, down at Keahialaka, still She works.  No day off.  Fountains yesterday, according to USGS HVO pulsed between 60 and 165 feet.  And She still is making the island bigger. And the PGcam too is mesmerizing.  Winds shift, light changes.  Early morning offshore breezes, because....Night time the land cools relative to the sea and winds blow down the mountain, out to sea.  Day time, land heats up and wind blows from the sea to the mountain, carrying moisture that condenses as the air rises forming clouds from which rain falls over ma uka slopes.  Diurnal heating and cooling.  Unless you have pyro-cumulus near the lava entry.  Billowing steam clouds rise high enough, form puffy cumulus clouds = rain.  From Pele.

And itʻs sad, in morninglight especially, to see the trees, most leafless, maybe dead or dying.  We hope maybe their leaves just fell off, and theyʻll resprout after the air is cleansed.  And the thinning vegetations allows us a peek at the left, of the green metal pipings at Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV).

And a visual from yesterday.  Out the kitchen window.  ʻŌpelu, and behind it the ʻōhelo kaulaʻau where mejiro play.  The brown things on the branch are last seasons seed pods.

And lest we forget, this below, taken at Halemaʻumaʻu in December 2005, by pal Alan Cressler.  Google him at Flickr for photos that are a constant source of amazement.

Note that this, of course, is before the lua in Halemaʻumaʻu opened in March 2008.  And thatʻs the swell of Mauna Loa in the background.  "Haze" at left horizon is noe uahi Puʻuʻōʻō (vog).

Well then.  No confetti today.  ʻŌlaʻi continue apace, breezy trades blow, sun shines. And I going walking!

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC