Episode 12 Underway

Update: lava fountaining started just after 2 PM HST Update: Lava stopped flowing into the crater at 8:04 am HST. Episode 12 has started erupting out of the south vent around 7:30 hst and lava is flowing into the crater! If you are considering driving up to the national park, I would probably wait to see if this episode starts to fountain before making the trek. It’s behaving differently than prior episodes. From USGS at 2:24 pm HST: "Episode 12 of the ongoing Halemaʻumaʻu eruption began at 7:30 a.m. HST on March 4 with sporadic small lava flows alternating between the south and north cones. The transition to continuous fountaining started at 2 p.m HST. The first morning lava flow came from the south vent and lasted for approximately 20 minutes. It was followed by another sluggish flow from the north vent at 9:33 a.m. HST that lasted for about 12 minutes. Small fountains within the south vent fed a third small flow beginning at about 12:45 p.m. HST, which continued until 2:00 p.m. HST, when fountaining began at the north vent. Fountains from the north vent were within the north cone and about 20-30 feet (5-10 meters) high at the start. By 2:20 p.m. HST fountains were reaching 150-165 feet (45-50 m) and are expected to grow in the next hour. Inflationary tilt reached just over 10 microradians since the end of the last episode; nearly balancing out the amount of deflationary tilt during episode 11. Seismic tremor began increasing and tilt at UWD switched from inflation to deflation at 2:00 p.m. HST, at the same time fountaining began. Each episode of Halemaʻumaʻu lava fountaining since December 23, 2024, has continued for 13 hours to 8 days and episodes have been separated by pauses in eruptive activity lasting from less than 24 hours to 12 days."