I mentioned complacency yesterday, then became umcomplacent over the course of the day. Weʻve shared about the rolling, swiveling motions of the exploquakes, which, if youʻve not felt them, are likely unfathomable. And weʻve shared about the sharp jolts and jabs of "real" ʻōlaʻi. And we became complacent and used to the almost-friendly nature of Her ʻami ʻōniu, that figure-eighting of the hips of exploquakes.
Then. Yesterday in a parking lot in hothothot Hilo, the car swayed. Oh oh. Was the M4.6 'ōlaʻi at 224p. The bigger orange dot just ma kai of the white smudge of Puʻuʻōʻō:
Then, minding my own business, watching something-or-other on TV last night, we were smacked by a very shallow jolt, a M3.8, two-tenths of a mile deep, at 940p. Itʻs buried somewhere in the mass of red and orange above, the display of the ʻōlaʻi for the past day. I thought, PTSDing, of the 18 like that we felt in 4 hours the first weekend of May. Stomach-churning. Thankfully, yesterday, there was "just" that one.
I much prefer it when Sheʻs kind and gentle. Less scary. And yes, we donʻt get to choose.
[Sunshadows on wall are orange this morning. I know that you folks in the Kona districts, and South Kohala too, are used to, perhaps, the descent of the orangeorb at the end of the day. I donʻt enjoy the implications. Noe uahi. VOG. Cough, headache, eye irritations, lung issues, lethargy, ennui.]
And the hard, hardworking staff at HVO continue their good works. Below, two aerial images posted to their website of a helicopter overflight Monday, June 18. All those ʻōlaʻi, all those ʻami ʻōniu? This is what we get. Halemaʻumaʻu used to be (six weeks ago!) a flt-bottomed circularish pit, a half-mile across, and 280 feet deep. From HVO:
The crater is now 1 x 1.3 km or 0.6 to 0.8 mi in dimension... The depth on June 15 was 370 m (1,210 ft). [bc: YIKES!]
Note, especially, that detached chunk of the wall of Kaluapele on the far right of the Pit. Poised to tumble. Breathtaking.
The road is Crater Rim Drive. The road to the left and the parking lot near the bottom are the Kīlauea Overlook and Picnic Shelter. Kinda in the middle right are the buildings of USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and NPS Jaggar Museum. Precarious.
Below, the impressive sag near the North Pit GPS (Global Positioning System) Station. Itʻs subsided 200 feet in the past week.
All told, the volume lost so far at the summit, so far, since this began six weeks ago...[drum roll, please...]
270 million cubic meters (.06 cubic mile). The sagging results from the withdrawal of LOTS of magma from beneath the summit, much of it apparently headed down the East Rift Zone, perhaps eventually to feed Pelehonuameaʻs appetites in Keahialaka. Geologists are busy analyzing samples gathered from active vents, trying to determine what lava is coming from where.
At Keahialaka in Puna ma kai, below, a straightup plume this morning indicates no wind...
Yesterday in Hilo. That hothothot place. The lovely blue of sky and the sapphire of ocean. Clear. Sparkling. WHITE clouds. And in the distance, maybe 15 miles away, sat a line of extraordinarily decorative cumulus. Those puffball clouds, but these with intricate tops reminiscent of cauliflower in their contortedness.
They are the pyro-cumulus. Pyro = fire. Heat rising off the river of pele, the māhu (steam) at the ocean entry, hot air cooling as it rises, and moisture and pelevapors all combine and conspire to produce those unique ao ʻōpua (cloud banks or billows).
The districts of Kona are honored by a favorite tune, "Kona Kai ʻŌpua". Do you know it? Especially pre-vog, but even these days, look for, on a clear morning before the sky gets too busy, those lines of flat-bottomed puffy clouds out by the horizon: ʻŌpua.
Good? Hope so. Headed out shortly for a field trip.
More tomorrow.
As always, with aloha,
BobbyC
questions to: maniniowali@gmail.com
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