Volcanic Perturbations from Tonga in Ynyslas

No doubt you have seen the various news reports of the massive volcano that erupted near Tonga over the weekend.

The eruption was likely the biggest recorded anywhere on the planet in more than 30 years. Dramatic images from space captured the eruption in real time, as a huge plume of ash, gas and steam was spewed up to 20 kilometres into the atmosphere and tsunami waves were sent crashing across the Pacific. The eruption and subsequent tsunami caused significant damage along the western coast of the main island of Tongatapu.

The eruption was heard for miles around and it sent out a shockwave that travelled away from the epicentre and around the entire planet. Amazingly, this shockwave was picked up by the barometer on the Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station in our back garden. This is a back garden that is around 16,000km from Tonga.

You can see this on the barometer in the image below. At around 7pm there is a blip on the top purple line showing the changes in pressure as the shockwave passed.

The shockwave that took the longer (approx 24,000km) journey around the planet in the opposite direction obviously took longer to get here so was picked up at around 2am the following morning. This can be seen in the image below, again as a small blip followed by some further perturbations in the top purple line at around 2am.

Amazing that an eruption so far away in Tonga can be picked up by relatively modest equipment.

Tags: Weather