Hungary Tonga Volcano continues to mark historic milestones. The January 2022 eruption circled the globe in hours, with its most intense display visible from space and tied to the strongest electrical discharge ever recorded.
The eruption mixed ash, water, and igneous gases to form a 58-kilometer plume in the mid‑Pacific, giving rise to an unprecedented electrical phenomenon. The eruption unleashed a storm of extraordinary power, according to a volcanologist with the United States Geological Survey.
Researchers combined data from four separate monitoring sources to observe what occurred inside the plume. This integrated approach holds the potential to reveal new stages of the eruption’s life cycle and the climate effects it created.
Findings published in Geophysical Research Letters show that this breakthrough not only broadens knowledge of volcanic behavior but also demonstrates that lightning monitoring can be used in real time. Such monitoring can improve ash-plume tracking, support emergency responders, and enhance aviation safety in the affected region.
The Tonga eruption is among the most intense ever recorded, according to agencies
The eruption expelled magma with an energy estimated between 5 and 30 megatons, a figure comparable to hundreds of Hiroshima bomb detonations. Yet the underwater setting produced different dynamics than land-based eruptions.
The study’s lead author, Van Eaton, explained that the storm formed as the high-energy magma broke through the shallow ocean, vaporizing seawater and lifting the plume into a massive column where collisions between volcanic ash, supercooled water, and hail generated intense lightning.
Up to 30 kilometers altitude
Lightning flickered through the cloud in rapid succession. About every minute, more than 2,600 discharges moved through the plume. In the days that followed, the total lightning count exceeded 192,000, distributed across roughly 500,000 electrical pulses. The activity reached altitudes up to 30 kilometers, extending into the stratosphere.
This eruption showed that volcanic columns can create conditions for lightning far more energetic than typical storms, notes Van Eaton, who also highlights that the observed phenomena included subsequent explosive events. Volcanic storms can outpace other weather systems in terms of lightning intensity.
The released electrical activity was unprecedented
Detailed analysis of the rays within the plume helped determine the actual duration of the eruption. The activity lasted much longer than initially thought, according to Van Eaton. The January 15 event produced volcanic plumes that persisted for at least 11 hours.
Additionally, the rays shed light on how the volcano behaved during different eruption phases, revealing four distinct blast phases influenced by plume height and the speed of lightning.
Beyond the lightning, researchers were intrigued by concentric ray rings forming near the volcano’s center. The scale of these rings was astonishing—nothing like it has been seen in meteorological storms, says Van Eaton. In storms, such rings are rare and typically smaller.
First freatoplinian eruption
Extreme turbulence at high altitude caused a rare event as the eruption injected so much material into the upper atmosphere that the plume generated ripples across the volcanic cloud, with lightning seemingly surfing on these waves and radiating outward in rings about 250 kilometers wide.
As remarkable as that was, Tonga’s initial eruption featured large volumes of magma entering the water, a phenomenon now documented thanks to modern instrumentation. Previously, such eruptions could only be inferred from the geological record; Tonga Hunga provided a live demonstration. The moment felt like watching a dinosaur stand up and walk, remarks Van Eaton.
Reference work: Geophysical Research Letters (cited study)
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