The Shiveluch Volcano on the Russian Peninsula of Kamchatka underwent a significant eruption during the overnight hours early on 10 April 2023. The CIMSS Satellite Blog discussed the eruption of a nearby Volcano a few days earlier. The JPSS constellation of satellites (S-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21) provided overnight imagery of the eruption on the 10th shortly after it began. In particular, the VIIRS Day Night Band (DNB) Near Constant Contrast (NCC) product captured nighttime visible-like imagery of ash and clouds associated with the eruption, in addition to the light emitted from the eruption when not masked by clouds/ash (Fig 1). The volcano was included well within five consecutive VIIRS passes combined from the three satellites (25-min or 50-min apart).
The cloud shield associated with the eruption was captured in Himawari-9 infrared imagery from the overnight period into the next day (Fig 2). IR brightness temperatures to as cold as -60C were observed.
Visible imagery from Himiwari-9 from the next day shows several bursts of covnection above the volcano just after sunrise (Fig 3). The low reflectance of the ash cloud is apparent in the imagery compared to surrounding cloud cover.
The GOES-West satellite provided a unique, oblique view of the eruption during the morning. Visible imagery around sunrise shows convective bursts over the volcanic eruption (Fig 4).
Combining multiple IR channels into a single multispectral RGB imagery product, named the SO2 RGB, allows one to diagnose and track the SO2 plume associated with the eruption. In this case, viewing the Himawari-9 SO2 RGB, the SO2 plume (yellow) can be tracked from the point of the eruption on the 10th, all the way to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska two days later (Fig 5).
Bill Line, NESDIS/STAR
Satellite Liaison Blog 