UPDATE – (12:15 p.m.) – The high lava fountaining phase of episode 36 began at 11:15 a.m HST on Sunday, November 9. Lava is currently fountaining from both the north and south vents within Halemaʻumaʻu at the summit of Kīlauea.

“Past episodes have produced incandescent lava fountains over 1000 feet (300 meters) high that produce eruptive plumes up to 20,000 feet (6000 meters) above ground level,” the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory wrote in a Volcanic Activity Notice. “According to the National Weather Service, winds are blowing from the northeast direction, which suggests that volcanic gas emissions and volcanic material may be distributed to the southwest of the summit of Kīlauea.”

(BIVN) – The eruption at the summit of Kīlauea remains in a precursory phase, building to the next anticipated high lava fountaining episode at the caldera within Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. 

Lava overflows continued mostly from the north vent over the past 24 hours, and scientists believe the start of episode 36 remains close. “Spattering is only associated with drainback events, indicating the rising magma is still gas poor,” the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory wrote on Sunday. 

“Low rates of summit inflation were observed over the past day, which resulted in inflation models extending the forecast window by one day,” reported the USGS HVO. The inflation-based models suggest high fountains could erupt at any time between now and November 12th. 

The USGS Volcano Alert Level remains at WATCH. 

USGS webcam shows a lava flow at the north vent on Sunday morning.

From the USGS HVO update issued on Sunday morning:

Intermittent overflows, lasting from a few minutes to 2 hours, from the north vent continued throughout yesterday and this morning. These overflows display limited spattering until drainback, indicating that mostly degassed magma is being erupted at this time. Both the main vent and the cone on the back wall remain active. North vent overflows were relatively short lasting from a couple minutes to about a half an hour. Overflows increased in volume and vigor early this morning and were extending a short distaince onto the flow of Halema’uma’u crater. Low dome fountains were common at the main vent along with double fountains from the cone. The south vent spattered intermittently showing lava is at a high level and produced 2 small overflows (7 p.m. and 2 a.m. HST). Over 170 precursory overflow events have occurred since early morning on November 3 with about two thirds of those coming from the north vent.

Summit inflation continued at a low rate yesterday. Overall, the Uēkahuna tiltmeter (UWD) has recorded approximately 0.7 microradian of inflationary tilt over the past 24 hours yielding 27.3 microradians of inflationary tilt since the end of episode 35. Tremor changed from relatively regular long bursts separated by short periods of quiet, to very irregular bursts that varied in duration and intensity last evening.

Plumes of gas continue from both vents this morning and sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas emissions remain at background levels, typically between 1,200 and 1,500 tonnes per day. Light trade winds have returned to the summit of Kīlauea this morning and are blowing from the northeast to the southwest.

Episode 35 lava fountains began at approximately 8:05 p.m. HST on October 17 and ended at 3:32 a.m. HST on October 18. South vent fountains reached heights of nearly 1,500 feet (460 meters) and north vent fountains reached heights of about 1,100 feet (330 meters). These were the highest single fountain and highest pair of fountains seen during this eruption so far. Episode 35 fountains produced an estimated 13 million cubic yards (10 million cubic meters) of lava. The combined average eruption rate was over 500 cubic yards per second (400 cubic meters per second) from the dual fountains. Lava flows from the fountains covered about two thirds of the floor of Halemaʻumaʻu crater.

USGS webcam shows a lava flow at the north vent on Sunday morning.