Breaking: Kīlauea Southwest Rift Eruption, June 3, 2024

Following an escalation of earthquakes in the South Caldera yesterday highlighted by a magnitude 4.1 event at 9:12pm, Kīlauea began to erupt from its Southwest Rift around 12:30am this morning. The eruption is wholly contained within Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, with no lava threat to people, but volcanic gas from this eruption has a higher chance to impact island residents especially during this onset phase. Current air quality monitoring data from the State and citizen networks are showing little vog impact thus far, but the emissions will likely affect some island residents today.

The eruption site reported by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory is located a little more than 2 miles southwest of Kīlauea’s summit, between the 1971 and the 1974 Southwest Rift eruption vents. All areas downslope of the eruption site are within the National Park, far from any residents. Although this eruption so far resembles the event in 1974 in its dynamics, that eruption only lasted 6 hours, and the 2024 sequence has been ongoing for 8 hours thus far.

As usual, we review the monitoring signals, imagery, and reports available courtesy of the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, annotating the presentation on screen as we go and discussing live viewer questions. To support our productions please like, share and subscribe, and consider making a donation at https://hveri.org/donate .