(BIVN) – The ongoing eruption at the summit of Kīlauea is paused, with the next episode of high lava fountaining expected to occur by the end of the week.

The USGS Volcano Alert Level remains at WATCH, with all activity confined to the summit caldera with Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone and Southwest Rift Zone remain quiet.

On Tuesday, the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said forecasting models indicate the window for episode 40 is between January 9th and January 14th.

USGS webcam view of Halemaʻumaʻu at the summit of Kīlauea on Wednesday morning.

The Observatory also reported Tuesday that volcano monitoring data plots are temporarily unavailable on the USGS website due to a server malfunction. “USGS staff are working on resolving the issue, but it may be several days before it is resolved,” the Observatory wrote. “Internally, volcano monitoring data is accessible and USGS staff are able to monitor volcanic activity. We apologize for this temporary outage and hope to have it resolved soon.”

The Uēkahuna tiltmeter (UWD) has recorded 20.0 microradians of re-inflation beneath Kīlauea summit since the end of episode 39 on December 24, 2025.

UPDATE – (January 7) – From the analysis provided by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on Wednesday:

The rapid rebound of inflationary tilt and presence of low-level volcanic tremor after episode 39 indicate that another lava fountaining episode is likely to occur. Magma is high in the vents and early this morning spattering at the north vent increased and was erupting a few of the clasts onto the apron around the vent. Over the past 48 hours, the UWD tiltmeter showed only about half a microradian of that inflation, but SDH (Sandhill) and SMC (Summer Camp) show the resumption of increasing tilt at those sites over the past 24 hours. The UWD tiltmeter may be seeing the effect of heavy rainfall (18 cm or 7 in) in the past few days. The slowing of inflation has pushed the forecast window for the start of episode 40 fountaining back slightly. Forecast models suggest the window for episode 40 is now between January 9 and 14.