(BIVN) – The ongoing eruption at the summit of Kīlauea remains paused, and the expected start of the next episode of high lava fountaining has been slightly delayed.

The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reports the summit region slowly deflated for much of Saturday, returning to inflation overnight. “Because of the brief deflationary excursion, the forecast models now suggest that lava fountaining episode 45 will occur slightly later, sometime between Tuesday, April 21, and Sunday, April 26,” Observatory scientists say.  

The Observatory says “strong and continuous glow, with frequent flames, have continued to be visible at the south vent over the past day.”  

USGS webcam view of the Kīlauea summit on Sunday morning

From the USGS HVO summit observations published on Sunday:

Glow was consistently visible at the Halemaʻumaʻu south vent overnight, along with prolonged periods of intense flaming—likely caused by the ignition of volcanic gases escaping the vent. The north vent continues to emit volcanic gases, but no glow was visible there overnight.

Low-level seismic tremor continues during the ongoing eruptive pause, and no earthquakes were recorded in Kīlauea summit region in the past 24 hours. Since the end of lava fountaining episode 44 on April 9, the Uēkahuna tiltmeter (UWD) has tracked approximately 13.1 microradians of inflationary tilt (note that this value is unchanged from the value reported in yesterday’s update due to the deflation and reinflation that occurred during the past 24 hours). This instrument recorded 17.6 microradians of deflationary tilt in total during the episode.

With the eruption paused, the sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission rate from Halemaʻumaʻu is likely now varying within a typical range of 1,000 to 5,000 tonnes per day. For the past few days, winds near the eruptive vents have been steady out of the northeast in the mornings before transitioning to more variable directions in the afternoons and evenings.