Anatahan, Mariana Islands, 10 May 2003

The large eruption of Anatahan, in the Washington VAAC area of responsibility, in 2003 fortuitously occurred while the GMS-5 and GOES-9 geostationary satellites were simultaneously operating over the area. May is during a season when the main area of tropical meteorological activity was equatorward, allowing good satellite observations. Here, we just present the GMS-5 loop of the eruption.

The colour scheme in this loop shows pale green for the weakest ash signal in the detection algorithm, and red/purple for the strongest. Parts of the eruption cloud were sufficiently ash-poor or water rich to not be explicitly detected.

Eruption gallery - click on a volcano