Large Eruption Near Tonga, Heard in NZ. Tsunami at Tonga and Fiji | Hacker News Reader

Large Eruption Near Tonga, Heard in NZ. Tsunami at Tonga and Fiji

earthquake.usgs.gov

876 pointsggm204 comments

Open articleView on HN

The satellite imagery is incredible -- you can see atmospheric waves traveling hundreds of kilometers:

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector_band.php?sat=G1... (GOES-West)

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector.php?sat=G17&sec...

https://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop.asp?dat... (Himawari-8)

https://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/himawari-8.a...

Edited comment: originally linked to the wrong satellite imagery (from a separate eruption several hours ago). The discussion in this link is still informative, but not current:

https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-er...

Here's the Himawari-8 satellite viewer, centred on the eruption.

Press the right arrow icon in the bottom right to advance to the next 10min snapshot.

https://himawari.asia/himawari8-image.htm?sI=D531106&sClC=&s...

You can also download high-res images (11000x11000 PNG):

https://sc-nc-web.nict.go.jp/wsdb_osndisk/shareDirDownload/b... (you might have to click this link twice for the search to work)

For anyone wanting to see the same shockwave as is linked here in video form, a BBC article[0] has a it embedded. The Himawari viewer works well for stills but makes the effect over time a bit harder to appreciate.

[0]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-60007119

Seriously fuck the BBC and their Cookie Consent prompt, do they really expect me to manually untick every single vendor?

No, they expect you to give up and accept them.

The worst one I ever saw was where above the fold items were unchecked, but the below the fold items were checked where you couldn’t see them.

You could use Firefox and a cookie-handler plug-in.

Yeah I just browse with a profile that deletes all cookies and history when I close the browser. Then just accept or dismiss all those stupid cookie consent popups.

I've seen many of consent forms mention tracking beyond cookies and cross-devices.

Are you sure that by accepting you aren't just accepting legally to continue to be tracked with all other means?

If true, then deleting cookies only cause them to ask again next time, but you're still fully tracked.

See https://www.kompyte.com/blog/5-ways-to-identify-your-users-w... (just found it) for examples of tracking without cookies.

They don't have it on mobile yet, though you can use the "I don't care about cookies" UBlock filterlist

More like "they had, but decided to remove". Firefox on Android used to support any extensions, but they cut that down. You can still get the functionality in browsers like Icecatmobile, though.

If you mean the old XUL extensions with zero security? I think that transition was worth losing some extensions due to the more strict sandboxing.

Alexander Hanff is trying to sort that: https://twitter.com/alexanderhanff/status/147830653943796940...

How about just not using their website is it is so annoying? The more audience they lose, the more apt they C we’ll be to change it.

That man is a moron. A tweet to a large organization's twitter handle is not a formal complaint.

I guess sending in a letter isn't as good for social media engagement, though.

I'm curious as to what you see (I'm in the UK so there are very strict legal requirements that the BBC don't show ads so my page will be different to yours) for me the cookie prompt is at the top and pushes the content down a little but I can ignore it and see everything. That meets gdpr requirements as I can still do what I want and unless I tick OK nothing should be set.

That sounds like a different experience to what we get in the UK - one cookie prompt and you're good to go for many months (at least).

Could be the BBC's fault, possibly due to in-country legalese though?

Use incognito, or Firefox + Multi-account Container + Temporary containers

uBlock Origin + EasyList Cookies or Fanboy Annoyances.

This is FANTASTIC! Thank you so much for sharing these links. Kids loved this, as we had just learned about similar volcanic eruptions through a recent Nat Geo magazine.

I think this might be the first satellite imagery I've seen that caught the color change in the clouds at sunset..

So it looks like the eruption happened right at dusk. For some reason that feels to me like that would make it worse for the people.

Yeah - the timelapse of the terminator showing darkness descending suggests it's was a rough night.

Himawari-8 footage is excellent. That shockwave is gigantic. Thanks for the link.

Really makes you think about how cool satellites have gotten. After some googling, I learned Himawari is a Japanese weather satellite:

https://www.satellitetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PH...

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/himawari-8.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himawari_8#/media/File:Himawar...

Video from Space is equally stunning: https://twitter.com/wonderofscience/status/14822800417993850...

That's the best one. Incredible. To imagine that Tonga is practically right at ground zero. Anyone know how this measures in megatonnes?

Here’s video with the sound of the eruption (loudest to faintest):

https://twitter.com/205mph/status/1482262486535573507

https://twitter.com/Rony_banchero/status/1482440640755556359

https://twitter.com/MrCombs679/status/1482241296135688194

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/205mph/status/1482262486535573507

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/Rony_banchero/status/148244064075...

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/MrCombs679/status/148224129613568...

100-160 Mt i saw rumored on Twitter.

Is my wikipedia-ing correct? Krakatoa was 200 Mt?

Are the Tongans okay?

No injuries reported, but communication is intermittent.

https://news.yahoo.com/tonga-issues-tsunami-warning-undersea...

> There were no immediate reports of injuries or the extent of the damage because all internet connectivity with Tonga was lost at about 6:40 p.m. local time — about 10 minutes after problems began, said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for the network intelligence firm Kentik.

> Tonga gets its internet via an undersea cable from Suva, Fiji, which presumably was damaged. The company that manages that connection, Southern Cross Cable Network, could not immediately be reached for comment.

There are social media posts of the tsunami though which I believe are from Tonga. So folks at the shoreline were presumably fine enough to record and post video somehow.

Tsunami: https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1482331481607311360

Eruption: https://youtu.be/Eu8V_WADjCw

I’d be worried about anyone on an airplane near there, but I guess it’s not a highly trafficked route.

>I’d be worried about anyone on an airplane near there, but I guess it’s not a highly trafficked route.

I was curious whether Fua'amotu International Airport is a stop on flights going elsewhere but I wasn't able to come up with a good search. It sounds like it could be:

"The air field was constructed by Seabees of the 1st Construction Battalion with assistance and labor of the U. S. Army 147th Infantry Regiment. It was intended as a World War II heavy bomber field, and had three coral-surfaced runways. In the late 1970s, it was expanded to permit jet aircraft to use the runways. Fuaʻamotu is now suitable for up to Boeing 767 size aircraft, but remains closed to larger jets (e.g. Boeing 747s)."

Today's aircraft can easily handle transpacific flights, and Tonga is in the Southern Hemisphere close to the equator so even Southern Hemisphere flights would likely avoid it.

It's basically just Australia and New Zealand to Hawaii and North America, and Pacific Islands east of Tonga. As well as any inter-Oceanic flights that happen to pass it.

I wonder how these social media posts were being uploaded due to a loss of internet connectivity. Satellite internet, or has internet been restored already?

Last time the undersea fibre optic cables (international and local) were broken (2019-2020) [0] a Kacific [1] K-band satellite emergency link was installed for and by the Tonga ISP EziNet [2] and others.

(the 2019 break was caused by a Turkish oil tanker prematurely dropping anchor in a restricted zone [3])

"DS Venture Ltd (DSV) was the owner of the Duzgit Venture. On 20 January 2019, as the vessel approached the Port of Nuku'alofa, its starboard anchor and chain were prematurely released from their housing. As the anchor and chain were winched back in, they caught and damaged a cable. The cable was one of two undersea communications cables owned by Tonga Cable Ltd (TCL) connecting Nuku'alofa, Ha'apai, and Vava'u with Fiji. As a result of damage to the cable, Tonga was without cable telecommunications for almost three weeks. "

[0] https://samoanews.com/regional/tonga-cable-break-located-rep...

[1] https://kacific.com/

[2] https://matangitonga.to/2019/01/26/geek-heroes-rescue-tonga-...

[3] https://cmlcmidatabase.org/ezinet-ltd-v-ds-venture-ltd

If the undersea cable was damaged I doubt it was repaired that quickly. I’m guessing satellite Internet.

Thank you for your incredible link collection.

Here is an animated gif in the relevant timeframe, 9 MB in size.

https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES17/ABI/SECTOR/tsp/Sandw...

and one hour earlier

https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES17/ABI/SECTOR/tsp/Sandw...

404ing for the first link

Oh no! Both links are a 404 now. Why didn't I save them :(

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector_band.php?sat=G1...

https://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop.asp?dat...

(Same links, with time windows that go further back)

Here's alternate versions with 24-hour long windows (not ideal), because I haven't figured out how to link timestamps in the URL parameters of satellite loops, so they are shifting forwards in time. (I'm sure someone else will figure out a better solution: I've given up).

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/sector_band.php?sat=G1... (GOES-West)

https://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop.asp?dat... (Himawari-8)

There was one yesterday and a bigger one 3-4 hours ago

And potentially more eruptions after the big one:

https://twitter.com/MJVentrice/status/1482437044785889286

They are evacuating Lord Howe Island.

FYI there is a tsunami advisory for the entire west coast at this point: https://tsunami.gov/ (specifically at [1], but tsunami.gov will contain the latest).

Expected arrival times in California (Pacific Time):

     * California
    Fort Bragg       0735  PST Jan 15
    Monterey         0735  PST Jan 15
    Port San Luis    0740  PST Jan 15
    Santa Barbara    0745  PST Jan 15
    La Jolla         0750  PST Jan 15
    Los Angeles Harb 0750  PST Jan 15
    Newport Beach    0755  PST Jan 15
    Oceanside        0755  PST Jan 15
    Crescent City    0800  PST Jan 15
    San Francisco    0810  PST Jan 15

1 = https://tsunami.gov/events/PAAQ/2022/01/15/r5qho6/3/WEAK51/W...

The parking lot at Santa Cruz (California) Harbor flooded and there was some minor damage, though a lot less than from the 2011 tsunami from the Japanese earthquake. It was only about a 30 to 50 cm surge (one to 1.5 feet) but happened at high tide.

Any info how large it is expected to be?

The advisory is really unclear how it is on scale "measurable wave" to "run away immediately"

Lack of specific seems to point to the first one but...

A few feet. It looks like there was some light flooding at a marina in Santa Cruz: https://twitter.com/PMBreakingNews/status/148239782805603123...

You can see wave heights by looking at the residuals plots on tide stations: https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tsunami. Looks like 2ft peaks in Monterey?

Not too big on the West Coast, it hit Santa Cruz and caused minor flooding at the harbor.

Video of the flooding: https://twitter.com/VFisher45/status/1482418293117886464

> If you are in a tsunami advisory area;

>* A tsunami with strong waves and currents is possible.

"Strong waves" may be anything from "measurably stronger wave" to "0.5m tsunami wave that requires evacuation from flat coastal areas"

Huh, Fort Bragg is a lot closer to Crescent City than Oceanside. I would think the earliest time would be the center of the incoming wave?

Pictures and videos here

https://twitter.com/MichaelFieldNZ/status/148221531738882458...

https://twitter.com/sakakimoana/status/1482218193619865600

https://twitter.com/_TheSeaning/status/1482230175806992391

Here is a satiliete view.

https://twitter.com/US_Stormwatch/status/1482229220415721475...

Did they know this was coming? Or how did they manage to have the satellite centred over the volcano at the right moment?

Edit: Found the answer, this was the second or third eruption from this volcano. So yeah they where already monitoring it. Amazing how they can manoeuvre these camera satellites now.

It's a weather satellite 36,000 km from Earth; half of the planet is contained in its field of view. Here, see:

https://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop.asp?dat...

Is that the same as this though? https://mobile.twitter.com/US_Stormwatch/status/148222922041...

This looks to be zoomed way closer than your link, you can see small waves on the ocean etc. I did not think you could film the whole face of the earth at that resolution?

Edit: Or are those small waves actually large clouds?

The two GOES satellites use the ABI (advanced baseline imager) to image a large portion of the total planet at a spatial resolution of around 1km. The GOES ABI design is influential on the broader world of weather satellites and many weather satellites operated by other countries (e.g. Japan's Himawari) use derived or similar imagers. GOES and Himawari are the premier weather imaging satellites of the US-allied world, collectively the two systems image a very large percentage of the total planet surface except extreme latitudes. Data from GOES and Himawari are fused to produce the global satellite images provided by e.g. NWS.

The US Stormwatch image does seem to be cropped from Himawari. The size here may be deceptive, the spatial resolution is not as high as it looks because this cloud is so large.

Although the GOES ABI (and related Himawari AHI) are static designs that image the full planet from a fixed position (i.e. there is no aiming or steering as is sometimes the case in other remote sensing satellites), they do deal with practical limitations related to readout and downlink capacity. As a result they typically produce a full-disk image every 5 minutes but both are capable of producing more frequent images of selected regions (areas of interest) on command. This capability is mostly used for maintenance purposes (e.g. registration calibration) rather than for weather observations.

Incidentally NOAA is preparing to launch a new GOES satellite, GOES-T which will become GOES-18, in somewhat over a month. It is the same basic generation as GOES-16 and GOES-17 currently in primary use, including the same basic ABI, but has a minor "bugfix" to the ABI design that will avoid a problem GOES-16 and GOES-17 have that requires them to go into a reduced readout rate mode some of the time for thermal management reasons.

My basic meteorology knowledge is somewhat limited but I believe what appear to be waves are cirrus clouds. This is somewhat confirmed by their significantly increased prominence along the shockwave front, as large shockwaves in the atmosphere cause some additional formation of condensation clouds due to the increased pressure, and these tend to be cirrus up at high altitude (the condensation immediately freezes into small crystals).

look like clouds to me but i'm not an expert in satellite imagery. the shockwave implies > the speed of sound so more of an explosion than eruption right?

Many eruptions are explosive[1], like Mount St. Helens in 1980. Here's a small explosive eruption where you can see the shockwave and eventually hear it when it hits the ship the cameraperson is on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUREX8aFbMs

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_eruption

I remember seeing on a TV program about an eruption where some people were monitoring a volcano from some miles away at an airport where they thought it was probably safe.

And the comment was made that if the pyroclastic flow reached them, the first they would know about it, at night, was when the runway lights vanished.

Very different from magma gently flowing out.

The satellite wasn't maneuvered, and it was not specifically monitoring this location. It is a weather satellite that looks at half the planet at a time. This is just a crop of a much wider field of view.

Satellites in general aren’t maneuverable. The camera angle can be changed to point at, and capture, a region of interest when the satellite passes over it, but the satellite’s orbit is determined on insertion and doesn’t change on demand.

Satellites can be moved, for example to avoid a collision with another satellite or debris, or to semi-permanently change the orbit. They have some sort of propulsion to allow this, and also counter atmospheric drag etc.

However, the lifetime of the satellite is generally limited by the amount of propellant (or whatever), after it's run out the satellite is useless. So it's not done on a whim.

They have a very limited amount of hydrazine, used for small course corrections for drag compensation and debris avoidance. It's not used, nor can be used, to "change orbit" in the sense of redirecting the satellite to look at some specific location on demand, outside of the satellite's original orbit.

Parent post is correct. Raising and lowering the orbit is a matter of burning a reasonable amount of rather limited fuel. But making a left hand turn at 17.5 km/h is incredibly energy intensive.

Look at the SpaceX launch of DART. They needed a whole rocket to lift a tiny payload due to needing to turn roughly 45 degrees

https://blogs.nasa.gov/dart/2021/11/24/nasa-spacex-launch-da...

You just put one in a polar orbit and tell them to look at coordinates next time it is to pass that area over. Earth rotates under it meanwhile.

Pretty sure these satellites from far away are all in geostationary orbit.

GEO satellites never move. Only times they are moved out of its longitude is when they are decommissioned or relocated when absolutely necessary, which by the way takes months.

> ... when the satellite passes over it ...

GEO satellites don't "pass over" anything by definition. They permanently float in the air 35786km above a designated spot along equator(complicated). So GP is clearly not talking about GEO satellites.

Exception of course being the X-37B spy "satellite"

Barometer data here:

https://twitter.com/dbanksnz/status/1482249871566331908

Roughly +/- 300 Pa pressure wave in New Zealand, about 2,000 km away.

This is from two indoor BMP280 sensors on Home Assistant that are about 5300 miles from Tonga. (They are a floor apart from each other)

It's amazing what extremely cheap sensors can currently measure, though 1883 technology was sufficient to measure the pressure wave from Krakatoa circling the globe multiple times.

https://imgur.com/a/ydvDtkV

Also in this thread:

https://twitter.com/IntelDoge/status/1482222778380177408

It's worth noting that that cloud is (very) roughly 150km across

I wonder at what point the person shooting that footage starts to question their decision of not getting to higher ground than single story roof

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/MichaelFieldNZ/status/14822153173...

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/sakakimoana/status/14822181936198...

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/_TheSeaning/status/14822301758069...

Whoa that second link.. that guy is so lucky this didn't turn into a full blown tsunami.

I don't think I'd like to live right at the coast if I were in the Pacific.

But luckily it seems to be more of a slow eruption

> Whoa that second link.. that guy is so lucky this didn't turn into a full blown tsunami.

That is what a full blown tsunami looks like, based on watching many YouTube videos on the subject.

Bear in mind this is only a minute of footage. If the water keeps coming in like that for an hour it will eventually reach the person shooting this video.

The scary thing about tsunamis is that they look fairly innocent in the beginning. And five minutes later there’s ten feet of water moving very fast with houses and cars in it.

Here’s a good example of how it can go from looking harmless to terrifying in 25 minutes: https://youtu.be/P8qFi74k2UE

That's a sobering video. It doesn't look like much... at first. The power and violence of the water really has to be seen to be appreciated.

Edited to add:

On March 11, 2011, large parts of the city were destroyed by the tsunami which followed the Tōhoku earthquake. The island of Ōshima and its 3,000 residents, included in the city limits, was isolated by the tsunami which damaged the ferry connections.[7] After the tsunami, spilled fuel from the town's fishing fleet caught fire and burned for four days.[8] As of 22 April 2011, the city had confirmed 837 deaths with 1,196 missing.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesennuma

Wow. Watching the people's attitude change, from puttering around in slippers joking about the first quaint little trickle, to full judgement day, within twenty minutes.

Wow! Someone else already mentioned it, but this so "interestingly unusual" to "apocalyptic" in twenty minutes it's hard to fathom. Thanks for sharing the link I personally had no idea!

The term 'tidal wave' has been deprecated for some time, as they are not gravity-driven, but it does capture how the wave does not just break on the shoreline like an ocean roller, it keeps on coming.

This is a real tsunami, just not really really big, they are partially protected by a reef. It's not a slow eruption (check out the shockwave in one of the videos, heard in New Zealand). There was a smaller bang yesterday.

Some of these communities have nothing but a coast!

It's probably in a Jared Diamond book somewhere about shifting expectations depending on where you grow up, some people can't imagine that people live in a place where you can't hear the sea, because they only knew that.

Also, for those that have some high areas, chances are the high areas are a volcano. If it is, it likely is an active volcano, as this region is on the ring of fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire)

What would be the timescale of those satellite videos? I imagine they must be time lapse videos?

It has a 10-minute repeat rate (one frame); you can see the timestamps here,

https://www.data.jma.go.jp/mscweb/data/himawari/

Judging by the movement of the sun I would guess a couple of hours, It's hard for me to tell with all the clouds in the sky. https://twitter.com/_TheSeaning/status/1482230175806992391

>What would be the timescale of those satellite videos?

They are animated gif's just a bunch of frames from the original video.

Here in Vanuatu we could also hear it. On facebook people from all the islands are talking about it and were trying to figure out if it was one of our own island volcanoes that erupted.

Has Vanuatu been affected by tsunami or ash ejecta?

I have a friend there. I hope you all stay safe. And then I wonder about air travel impact for all of the region.

Tsunami was minor but no ash here yet. Everyone is okay :)

Does anyone with knowledge about volcanoes have context on how big this is? Clearly not small, but is this a once-in-a-decade or a once-in-a-lifetime size explosion? Are there any well-known eruptions to compare it to (e.g. Mount St. Helens)?

Not a volcanologist here but I've always loved volcanoes.

It's probably gonna depend on how long it keeps erupting. Volcanic eruptions are rated (VEI index) on volume of material ejected, but each level has 10x more material than the previous.

If this were a volcano on land... I'd guess we are at a 4 or so. As this is a volcano that just barely breached the surface and thus interacts with water alot... maybe a 3? Volcanoes like this create really violent explosions (like the ones heard yesterday), but that doesn't necessarily require more material.

As said though, it'll be hard to tell without knowing how long the eruption went on and seeing the state of the island.

Probably between VEI 4 and 6 inclusive.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index

It is believed that the mystery eruption of 1808 originated in the same area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1808_mystery_eruption

According to https://theconversation.com/why-the-volcanic-eruption-in-ton... this one is pretty much right on schedule for an eruption of this size every ~1000 years.

I initially misinterpreted this.

After checking the link, it seems it is saying this event is a 1 in 1000 year event for this volcano, not for the world in general.

I guess it could be both, but they don't appear to be saying that.

It's unknown precisely (still erupting), but it's probably not even the largest eruption in the last few months.

Not sure someone else shared this , but this looks scary

https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/s4imrz/tongas_hunga_t...

Man. This has got to count as the largest explosion on earth within any of our lifetimes. Anyone got a figure on how much pulverized rock would have been displaced into the atmosphere had this taken place on dry land? How long a nuclear winter we'd be in for? Or how this compares to Krakatoa? From the imagery it seems orders of magnitude larger as a single explosion than all the nuclear weapons we ever detonated combined. That shock wave goes over Tonga within the first couple frames.

It still remains to be seen exactly how big it is. My feel is it’s slightly smaller than Mount Pinatubo in 1991 (in my lifetime) which significantly reduced global temperatures for a bit. Folks have suggested maybe 0.1 to 0.5C (0.2 to 1 degree F) temporary temperature reduction.

Probably 4-6 on the VEI scale. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index

I wonder if the debris this puts up into the atmosphere will help slow the effects of climate change

its theorized massive amounts or co2 wouod be released from yellowstone.

more realistically, this would just cool for a few years, make climate denial easier to believe, then signficantlymrebound in amcoupke of years

Probably not. Way to small for that, and even the early large eruptions only affect the atmosphere noticably for a year or two (unless it's a really really really crazy large eruption that makes Tambora look like tiny)

They won't slow it, but pause effects for a short while. The CO2 would still be there afterwards and all the while increasing, the oceans will still be acidifying, etc.

The next years after would still be as bad as predicted

Possibly, but only briefly, highly dependent on the composition. Previous large explosions had measurable cooling effects for a year or two.

It would... if it weren't underwater.

The cloud you see in the satellite image is in the atmosphere.

Since the dec 20 2021 eruption it's been an island.

But did it just blow the top off of that island to put it back underwater?

I think it has increased in size a lot. But i need to see the latest footage.

Ah I didn’t realise that. Thanks for clarifying.

That's a pretty awful hot take.

Unless this is some terribly poor trolling, in which case I've taken your bait...

Volcanic winter:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

The Year Without Summer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

Not sure what a hot take is. It was a a genuine question - volcanic eruptions have well documented climatic effects.

It's kind of a compliment. "Hot take" is becoming common parlance, but a hot take as defined by Blind Boy Boathouse would be a connection you notice between two seemingly unrelated things, and then dive into to arrive at a smashing observation about, where you link those things by obsessively researching the connections between them, to reveal a hot take on events that no one has quite heard of, or had the same take on before.

Check out this, maybe the great hot take of all time. https://play.acast.com/s/blindboy/pooanon

It's kind of a compliment

I'm not so sure it is a compliment.

I've heard advertisements on the radio recently for financial and sports programs and web sites where they promise "No hot takes — only real information."

Yeah, I think "hot take" [1] is the analytic analogue to expressions like "by the seat of the pants," [2] meaning something like: A rushed, likely emotional, reaction to something with no or minimal follow-up research or analysis.

  1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_take
  2: https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants

Not precisely. What makes a "take" hot is its provocative or controversial nature. It's not quite flamebait -- that implies more of a deliberate attempt to sow discord -- but it's along the same lines.

Eh, that's what I was thinking too (except it's underwater). One good belch like this from Yellowstone and we'd be back in an ice age.

Aren't we still sort of in an ice age, in relative geologic terms?

Okay, yes we are, with the popular usage of ice age referring to the last period when glaciers were much more dominant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

A definition of an ice age that I read somewhere is when there are permanent ice sheets at the poles.

What length of time are these satellite videos taken? I think it might make the explosion look larger than it really is. What we are seeing is the billowing flat top of the debris cloud.

Unlikely to be that big. More like a once per year to once per decade eruption.

If this is indeed a VEI4, Krakatoa would have been 100x bigger.

And fertilizer prices are already extremely high due to Nat gas shortages. Crop yeilds are going to be bad.

My watch was able to pick up the pressure wave in Switzerland, on the other side of the earth. It's the little spike around 25% from the left. I wouldn't have believed it but the magnitude, timing and shape line up with what others have reported from stationary barometers on twitter.

https://twitter.com/phreeza/status/1482693725168054277/photo...

I actually quite like the "zoomed-out" version, it really shows the scale of the event. Look at the bottom right quadrant of this video:

https://earth2day.com/TheWall/Movies/HIMAGLOBAL36h.html

Big thanks to earth2day again!

The expansion of the shockwave there is almost like running a race against the terminator, but not quite as fast. Amazing.

It looks like there was another eruption in a volcano north east of there the day before?

Wikipedia's article on the topic should be a good onging / updated summary of the event:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_eruption_of_Hunga_Tonga

I saw a thread on Twitter regarding the expected pressure spike that should be happening shortly in Southern Algeria as the pressure waves converge from opposite directions at the antipode of the volcano. Thought that was pretty interesting.

Really interesting! Maybe this is the thread?

https://twitter.com/A_J_Higgins/status/1482386808021340160

Author says no danger to Algerians BTW.

Yeah, that’s the one.

US Stormwatch has an incredible shot of the eruption- the largest ever captured by satellite: https://twitter.com/US_Stormwatch/status/1482229220415721475

Is there any website tracking how long the sound would take to reach various locations? I’m guessing I might be able to hear a gentle rumble in SF

Edit: some Googling tells me it's about 5300 miles from SF to this volcano. At 767mph, that's 6 hours and 54 minutes. The volcano erupted at 8:26pm Pacific, meaning at around 3:20am Pacific time the sound should reach SF.

Heard nothing in Sydney Australia .. so I wouldn't count on hearing it from SF.

I live in the Yukon Territory, Canada... Not 100% sure this explosion is what woke me this morning but:

I woke up at 7:15 AM MST to what I though was a freight truck loading boxes at the business next door. Rumbling, thudding noises. Very faint. Promptly ignored it and tried to go back to sleep, a few moments later my sister 100 KM outside of my location on a off-grind property texted me asking if I could hear thunder/fireworks like noises outside. Noise probably lasted 10-15 minutes.

I did some napkin math for speed of sound and it gets close.

--------------

9,700 KM distance Tonga - Whitehorse, YT

1,225 Km/hr speed of sound @ 20C

~7.9 Hrs to get here

3:10 PM AEDT Saturday 1st Explosion - 9:10 PM MST Friday + 8 Hrs = 5:10 MST Saturday

5:26 PM AEDT Saturday 2nd Explosion - 11:26 PM MST Friday + 8 Hrs = 7:26 AM MST Saturday

Accounting for inaccuracy, temperature changes along the way, wave diffraction, etc., I'd say you heard it.

It was heard easily in North America:

> The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano was heard across the South Pacific, and eventually as far away as the US.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60007119

It was heard in NZ, some as south as Christchurch claiming to have heard it. In in Christchurch and didn't hear it but did see changes in air pressure was the sound waves went through.

You know it's bad when the tide gauge data stops suddenly. :/

http://www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org/station.php?code=nkfa

>“We continue to try and contact the Tonga network operations centre but at this stage remain unable to do so, even via satellite phone. While we understand Tonga also has satellite links, we don’t know whether the satellite ground equipment has been affected.”

The ground link between Fiji and Tonga was broken. Even satellite links are down due the ash cloud. That's why there's no telemetry from anything at all. Hard to imagine but we have no link to Tonga.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/127512800/southern-cross-ca...

What about radios? Any radio connections?

Shockwave as seen from York, UK (both directions).

https://twitter.com/sandyjmacdonald/status/14824464836559626...

Thread collecting other amateur observations.

https://twitter.com/hschhaya/status/1482486253685723136

Seems my indoor Netatmo module also caught it - https://imgur.com/a/CNFvOco

Really, unbelievably cool satellite images. I don't know much about satellite imagery, is Himawari-8 always pointed to that area in the Pacific, or did we expect it to explode and was purposefully pointed towards the island?

Here's what I honestly worry about: queue the conspiracies, "New islands don't just explode like that! That's the Fauci-Gates COVID-5G nuclear testing site sheeple!"

...cause Krakatoa definitely never happened.

It's in a geostationary orbit at 140.7 degrees east, roughly in line with the east coast of Japan, and about 35 degrees west of the volcano, so it always has the volcano in view. It has an imaging sensor which continuously scans the whole visible disc of the earth, taking ten minutes to do so [1]. So, you get pictures of anything that happens, anywhere!

[1] http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/jma-eng/satellite/news/himawari89/h...

Yes, Himawari-8 is a geostationary satellite over longitude 140deg east and always pointed there. The Wikipedia article contains images of the full disk of Earth that it is observing. Since it is geostationary, the view does not change.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himawari_8

Recording of a (very loud) blast hitting Tonga, it says

https://twitter.com/205mph/status/1482262486535573507

Taumoefolau: tsunami landing video

https://twitter.com/sakakimoana/status/1482218193619865600

Along southern Alaska, the shockwaves were audible a few hours ago. I slept through it, but my feed has people complaining of having been woken up. Our local subreddits have posts from people being confused about potential thunder or military exercises. It is incredible to think of the energy involved in these events.

Do you know what time? I'd love to see if any of my cameras picked it up but hard to scrub audio in large quantities.

Around 4-5 AM AKST going off what I see others have been saying, sorry I don't know precise timestamps. One of the posts in /r/alaska was at 4:50 AM. One in /r/anchorage was at 4:39 AM.

Edit: Alaska Volcano Observatory just posted this graph of the pressure wave here

https://www.facebook.com/alaska.avo/posts/296707312495753

Put the audio in a tool that visualises it (e.g. Audacity), should make the segments easier to pick out than scrubbing.

Getting crazy tides sloshing in and out of the marina every couple minutes here on Oahu.

Amazing satellite crop here:

https://twitter.com/weatherwatchnz/status/148223725311218893...

Top middle - eruption Left middle - cyclone Cody Bottom left - New Zealand 2000km/1200miles away

I live on a boat in Southern CA. Can someone here help me quantify how concerned I should be about this?

please see the notes below https://tsunami.gov/events/PAAQ/2022/01/15/r5qho6/3/WEAK51/W...

Get into deeper water

Selected section for boat operators:

* Boat operators, * Where time and conditions permit, move your boat out to sea to a depth of at least 180 feet.

     * If at sea avoid entering shallow water, harbors,
       marinas, bays, and inlets to avoid floating and
       submerged debris and strong currents.

 * Do not go to the shore to observe the tsunami.

 * Do not return to the coast until local emergency officials
   indicate it is safe to do so.

This doesn’t seem to be specifically about house boats. Might be worth contacting your local emergency officials (whoever they may be).

To be honest, this is the kind of thing you should look up before you decide to live on a house boat.

You probably know more about living on a boat than most people here, you tell us.

NZ civil defence tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/NZcivildefence/status/14822498459...

Actual tsunamis have been reported in Fiji, and of course Tongatapu

From https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/37334713/heres-the-diffe...

"Tsunami Advisory Alert color: Orange

When a Tsunami Advisory is posted, tsunami conditions in or near the water are expected. Under an advisory, strong ocean currents and/or waves with the potential to cause coastal damage are expected.

The public should stay out of the water and away from beaches and coastlines."

>Incredible footage has emerged of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano erupting sending ash, steam and gas 20 kilometres into the air.

https://www.facebook.com/couriermail/videos/479475316908812/

Liveblog: https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/459618/live...

This short video from Independent is incredible as well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu8V_WADjCw

Edit: Shame, it's from the day before. Still interesting, so leaving it here.

> A tsunami advisory is in effect Saturday morning for the West Coast, including coastal California and parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, after a large underwater volcanic eruption near the Tonga Islands Friday night.

The National Weather Service said peak waves of one to two feet are possible from the event.

[from sfgate] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/bayarea/amp/Tsun...

Just in case anyone with family in sf was wondering.

the google maps location, incase anyone was curious:

https://goo.gl/maps/y9bKggsA9H5fLT4x9

I could hear these large thuds all the way from the top of the south island, NZ, in the hills and at around the same time others were reporting it. Definitely heard like 20+ of these sounds, just assumed it was some anti-pest thing going off at random intervals but it was pine forest so doubt it was that.

NZ Met service https://mobile.twitter.com/MetService/status/148225203503067...

Normally Tsunami algorithms start calculating/warning when there is M7 or higher. As an "airquake" the registered magnitude is negligible.

Crap, I hope people are safe :(

Does Larry still live there?

These volcanos have been on since December so I guess he'd bailed since then.

Are there similar satellite imagery for the probably much bigger explosion that was krakatoa?? If no why..

The big krakatoa eruption wiki lists was 1883[0], while tsiolkovsky was doing some theory by then, nobody was building satellites.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa

Is this parody?

https://mobile.twitter.com/FirstName__Last/status/1482259505... I am no expert but this looks huge, perhaps something the size of the Krakatoa eruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa

Much smaller than Krakatoa so far. We'll have to see where it comes out on the VEI scale though. Krakatoa was really big, so I think it's pretty unlikely we will get close to that on this one.

The Tsunami they are guessing probably came from an earthquake or underwater landslide caused by the eruption, but the eruption doesn't really need to be huge to cause those. It'll be interesting to see once the eruption stops (if it's a landslide, you can usually see a crescent shaped formation on the volcano, although it may be underwater).

From the Krakatoa page:

"The third explosion has been reported as the loudest sound heard in historic times. The loudness of the blast heard 160 km (100 mi) from the volcano has been calculated to have been 180 dB. Each explosion was accompanied by tsunamis estimated to have been over 30 metres (98 feet) high in places. ...The energy released from the explosion has been estimated to be equal to about 200 megatonnes of TNT, roughly four times as powerful as the Tsar Bomba"

The terminator in this video provides a good sense of time elapsed.

Wow I'd never have known the line between day and night ever had a name, before you used that word! :)

In some alternate universe 1984's "The Terminator" is a movie with a similar plot to "Pitch Black" in our universe (yes I know it's an eclipse in "Pitch Black").

The Ecliptic Terminator - "I'll be back!"

And you can be pretty sure it will be back, inevitably.

That seems unlikely, since the magnitude was only 4.0. The relation between magnitude and actual impact is complex, but big ones tend to be 6+ and really big ones 8 or even 9.

The current magnitude estimate from the USGS is 5.8, with the caveat that, "...this event is calculated using techniques calibrated for earthquakes. The current magnitude is only a preliminary estimate for this volcanic event." [1]

  1: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/pt22015050/executive

What is the magnitude scale for volcanoes vs earthquakes? The tsnumai.gov site says this is magnitude 1.0 but without units or type. So I wonder if it's a tsunami potential specific scale?

I think the 1.0 magnitude is there as a placeholder. The advisories say to ignore it:

>Please disregard earthquake parameters

What are you basing your comparison of the two on I wonder?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com