New fountain erupts, signaling beginning of new episode of activity in Kīlauea summit

“The floor is lava,” proclaimed Willaim W in the live chat as more than 400 people watched shortly after midnight Jan. 25 while lava once again fountained from the north vent in the southwest portion of Halema’uma’u Crater within Kaluapele, the summit caldera, of Kīlauea.

Episode 6 of the Big Island volcano’s latest eruption, which began the week of Christmas 2024, is underway as lava flows onto the crater floor from a geiser that started at about 11:28 p.m. Jan. 24.

Lava was fountaining to between 10 and 20 feet high within about 2 hours after Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported spattering that kicked off at about 6 p.m. Jan. 24 increased to spatter fountaining and spiked in frequency and intensity.

By about 12:30 a.m. Jan. 25, fountains continued ejecting molten rock from the north vent at heights of at least 150 feet, feeding two lava channels onto the crater floor, and a small dome fountain began erupting from the previously quiet south vent.

“Craziest thing I’ve ever seen guys,” said dabbindood in the livestream chat.

Rob Waner told his fellow live chatters that a camera at one of the observatories atop Mauna Kea captured the glow from the new eruptive episode. He was more than correct.

Episode 6 was erupting so brightly, it was caught by at least two observatory cameras — the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and Gemini North Telescope.

The new eruptive activity follows the most recent pause that began early the morning of Jan. 23 after about 13.5 hours.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported in a Kīlauea status report at 12:41 a.m. Jan. 25 that activity included small dome fountains 15 feet high feeding a short lava flow from the north vent.

A view of the livestream at just after 2 a.m. showed a still-fountaining north vent.

Inflationary tilt at the summit recovered the 2.5 microradian tilt loss during Episode 5 by 2 p.m. Jan. 24 and had increased another 0.5 microradians just before the new eruptive event started.

The tiltmeter at Uēkahuna switched to deflation and seismic tremor began increasing at about 11:25 p.m. just before lava flows began erupting onto the crater floor.

Light winds were blowing at less than 10 mph out of the north-northeast at the time of the volcano observatory’s status update, sending the gas plume to the south into the Kaʻū Desert.

Each episode of lava fountaining since the summit eruption started Dec. 23, 2024, has continued for 14 hours to 8 days, and episodes have been separated by pauses in eruptive activity lasting less than 24 hours to 12 days.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory continues to closely monitor Kīlauea and will issue an eruption update later today unless there are significant changes before then.

Kīlauea’s volcano alert level remains at watch and its aviation color code at orange.

The observatory also remains in close contact with Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, which is where the volcano’s summit is located, and Hawai‘i County Civil Defense.

Visit the Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park website for visitor information.

No changes have been detected in the volcano’s East Rift Zone or Southwest Rift Zone.