Impressive, and I have to notice that some reports still say that the volcano was underwater, not since 2015, Hunga Tonga became a volcanic island since then.
So I was older than a piece of land! But time will tell if the island grew or was obliterated.
I’m in touch with a girl I dated in high school who lives on a boat anchored in Vanuatu. I texted her this morning, she said things got quite exciting and she may have seen a nearby catamaran founder but wasn’t sure as it was quite dark. Her and BF were going to abandon ship for a hotel at higher ground as soon as it got light.
FYI OP, you’re older than many pieces of land near Kilauea. I was there years ago and there were signs in the caldera dating each lava flow and many were younger than me.
The National Weather Service office in Honolulu has a series of photographs taken from a much lower altitude. It’s on their Twitter feed. (I don’t have a Twitter account, so I can’t post a link. So far, I haven’t seen it on any other source.)
You don’t need a twitter account to go to twitter. You can just enter “National weather service twitter” into Google, and Bob’s your uncle.
One would think that one was safer on a boat than on a spot that could potentially end up underwater … at least boats float.
Yeah, I’d think so but apparently the catamaran’s mooring line pulled down the boat when the wave hit and it ended up under a dock, taking water. I’m not quite picturing that but that’s what I was told.
One does what we did - rode the tail end of the hurricane from Rochester NY to Kingston ON … you use a minimal line that will break away on the anchor, so if it gets really heavy, you get pushed away. It must not have been too rough, I slept through it. But then again, I stayed in a tent in Williamsburg VA for the 1988 hurricane that hit tidewater Virginia. Didn’t bother me much but the cat was terrified.
Trust Scott Manley to produce an excellent video promptly:
Volcanic Eruption May Be Biggest Ever Seen From Space - YouTube
I’m fascinated by the pressure waves crossing Japan & the US, as measured by weather stations.
I’m fascinated by the longer term climate effects from what has been confirmed as the largest eruption of the satellite era (last 60 years) (cite):
The global weather may be affected by this event. Volcanos can cool the world for multiple years, resulting in a “year without a summer.” I wonder if we’ll see an extended, or extra-cold winter in the northern hemisphere? Flooding events?
At any rate, we might experience a break from the steady march of “warmest year” records we’ve been having lately.
When I was a kid I wanted to visit Tonga. I read about it in a 1968 issue of the National Geographic. There was an article about the coronation of their king,
I was impressed by his mom, Queen Salote. She was over six feet tall.
It was weird seeing this immediately after watching The Eternals. I’m just saying.
Here’s some terrestrial ffootage. Lots of muted cursing.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/01/15/tonga-video-captures-enormity-of-shockwave-boom-after-eruption/
That video was something! I wonder how long it was between the eruption and when they got the shockwave?
That reminded me of footage from the Chelyabinsk meteor. I remember when it first aired, and wondered how many Russian speakers had a good laugh while thinking or saying, “The TV networks have no idea what those people just said!” Later, the footage was bleeped.
The shockwave probably traveled at the speed of sound, so in short, the number of miles between the eruption and the filmers, times 5.
I had that same issue. I believe there was also a story about the Shah of Iran in it.
As a teenager, I felt that Flanders & Swann made an excellent case for Tonga tourism.