A volcano erupts in near Grindavík, Iceland
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The skies over southwest Iceland turned dramatic as a volcano erupted on the Reykjanes Peninsula on Tuesday night. Following a series of tremors in recent weeks, the volcano began emitting lava and smoke, impacting the nearby fishing community of Grindavík.
In anticipation of such an event, authorities had already evacuated approximately 4,000 residents in November, with the eruption being a direct consequence of the preceding earthquake activity. This natural spectacle underscores the region's seismic volatility."
Live webcam monitoring the current situation:
Understanding Active Fires layer
Based on new data from NASA FIRMS at Windy, you can see the approximate area where the lava flows. The new data shows the strength of the fire and also the approximate area that is burning (in this case, lava).
Beware, the fire strength is relative to each pixel on the map (1 pixel = app. 300 m). The fire area applies to the whole area. Check the picture below. Value "6869 MW" is relative to the pixel we clicked on. Value "46 km2" applies to the whole area.
About NASA data
The presented value is called Fire Radiative Power (FRP) and depicts the pixel-integrated fire radiative power in MW (megawatts) over a square kilometer. To offer a comprehensive view of fires that are larger than one pixel, we present the total area of a fire cluster. The data are updated every 6 - 7 hours.
https://www.windy.com/-Satellite-satellite?satellite,63.411,-21.920,8,internal
David Polášek
Marketing Director at Windy.com -
@David-Polášek I noticed this data from FIRMS too, it is however not correct that the 'hot' area represents the lava flow. IMO (the meteorological institute of Iceland) states the lava flow yesterday was only 3.7km2 (they include a map here). FIRMS is reporting 46km2, that cannot be right. I wonder though what FIRMS is picking up, would hot smoke trigger it? Or perhaps the rocks got hot even though they are not covered in lava?
Edit: looks like we need a different cut-off, perhaps 100MW or so.
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The hot area is a lot smaller than it used to be now.
I wonder if anyone has any futher insights in what it picked up.
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The skies over southwest Iceland turned truly dramatic on Tuesday night as the volcano started erupting. This is quite remarkable, especially after a series of tremors in recent weeks.
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