Satellite images show Tonga volcano producing strongest storm in history 01:29

The eruption of the Tonga volcano started processes in the atmosphere that resulted in the strongest storm in the history of observations. Reported by the American Geophysical Union.

On January 15, 2022, the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Haapai volcano in the country of Tonga (Polynesia) erupted. This eruption was the most powerful in the 21st century, with a column of ash reaching the stratosphere, rising to a height of 58 kilometers, while also throwing 146 teragrams (trillion grams) of water into the stratosphere. Atmospheric fluctuations caused by the explosion reached Moscow and circled the Earth several times.

Alex Van Eaton, a volcanologist at the US Geological Survey, and colleagues analyzed data from Earth’s remote sensing satellites. According to scientists, a high-energy magma eruption crossed the shallow ocean, causing a violent storm. The molten rock evaporated seawater, which rose and eventually became a vapor cloud that caused exciting collisions between volcanic ash, supercooled water, and hailstones.

Summarizing data from sensors that record light and radio waves, the scientists watched lightning strikes and estimated their heights. It turned out that the explosion produced just over 192,000 flashes (consisting of almost 500,000 electrical pulses) with a maximum frequency of 2615 flashes per minute. Some of these lightning bolts reached unprecedented heights between 20 and 30 kilometers in Earth’s atmosphere.

“Not only were we attracted by the intensity of the storm. We were surprised by the concentric lightning rings at the center of a volcano that expanded and contracted over time. We were stunned by the scale of these lightning rings. We’ve never seen anything like this before. Single lightning rings have been observed, but not multiple and much smaller ones,” the authors summarized.

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