What Happens When Hurricanes Hit Volcanoes?

In a phrase: big bada-boom. Learn how hurricanes and volcanoes intensify each other in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren volcabam here it seems like a scenario tailor made
for a cheesy disaster film, the next Big Thing on Netflix,
or a soon to be sci fi network classic. A
rumbling volcano on a remote tropical island. A monster is
hurricane barreling relentlessly towards it, lava, lightning, stinging rain, flooding,

(00:25):
man eating sharks dropping out of the sky. It strike
that last part. This isn't Sharknado, but the odd coupling
of active volcano and hurricane still can be pretty cool
and scary, and it's very real. When a hurricane meets
a volcano, and it happens probably more often than you think,
some strange and wondrous sparks begin to fly. How big

(00:48):
those sometimes literal sparks become depends on a few key factors,
of course, including the strength of the hurricane, how active
the volcano is, and the topography surrounding the volcano. Because
of those variable it's almost impossible to accurately predict what
will happen when a big storm settles over a big volcano.
But lightning, lava, rain, and winds are all possibilities. We

(01:11):
spoke with Stephen Bussinger, a professor in the Department of
Meteorology at the University of Hawaii, who admits we always
get excited when a hurricane comes by in Hawaii. The
volcano Kilauea on the Island of Hawaii, also known as
the Big Island, has been actively spouting off since nine
It's latest stretch, which began in mid May, has spute

(01:34):
lava from the volcano, destroying seven hundred houses and adding
more than eight hundred and fifty acres. That's about three
hundred and forty three hectares of new land to the
Big Island. But in August of researchers from the U
S Geological Survey said activity from Kilauea's fission number eight,
the largest and most active, has decreased to only a glow.

(01:54):
It's not just the lava that makes volcanoes dangerous, though.
Volcanoes shoot vast amounts of into the sky that can
contribute to a lot of rain and flooding. Oregon State
University's Volcano World website explains that the ash thrown into
the atmosphere can attract and collect water droplets, creating more
rain and lightning in the immediate area. When a tropical

(02:15):
cyclone or hurricane heavy with rain and strong winds is
added to that already volatile volcanic weather mix, things can
become even diceier. Bussenger said, its circulation is more vigorous.
People can be killed by the heavy winds that result
or the lightning that results. Bussenger has a pH d
in atmospheric sciences and has been tracking storms, including ones

(02:37):
that interact with volcanoes, at the University of Hawaii for
some twenty five years. Here's a historical example. Mount Pinatubo
in the Philippines blew its top the second largest volcanic
eruption of the twentieth century, when Typhoon Union brought heavy
rains just as the volcano was erupting. The volcanic ash
and rock that Pinatubo coughed up was washed down the

(02:58):
volcano slopes and flows known as lahars over the next
four years. Those lahars, originally prompted by Yunia and later
egged on by other storms and rainy seasons, eventually caused
more damage than the eruption itself. After observing tropical storm
Flossy roll over Kilauea, in Bussenger and colleague Andre patent

(03:18):
Hius measured something else, a marked increase in lightning. They
explained it in a paper in the journal Geophysical Research
Letters in quote, in the clean atmosphere, you have large
droplets form around few particles, and those large droplets tend
to fall out before these large droplets have a chance
to get up into the upper atmosphere where freezing takes place.

(03:40):
It's freezing that's required for electrification. When you have pollution
from a volcano that's producing lots of condensation particles, a
cloud condensation nuclei we call it. Then you get many droplets.
Those smaller droplets don't rain out, and they're more easily
lofted above the freezing level, and then you do get
charge separation electrification. By early August eighteen, just before Hurricane

(04:03):
Hector swung near the southern side of the Big Island,
seven tropical cyclones had already made landfall across the Hawaiian
islands since Kilauea began. As the latest run eruptions. The
three most recent, according to the Weather Channel where Flossy
in Hurricane Zel and Hurricane Darby in with Kilauea showing
few signs of abating, Hawaii may be facing several more

(04:25):
chances at hurricane versus volcano meetings. But even if a
tropical storm doesn't directly strike the big island, even if
it doesn't make landfall and glide over Kilauea, even if
the rains and lightning are somehow held to a minimum,
can still stir things up around Hawaii. Some of those byproducts,
given the alternative, might even be welcomed there. The heavy

(04:46):
moist air of a hurricane can help clean the air
of the bigger ash particles from a volcanic eruption, and
a good windy storm is always welcomed by some types
in the islands. Passenger said, it's going to kick up
some holacious surf. Today's episode was written by John Donovan

(05:06):
and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff has merchandise now.
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and of course, for more on this and lots of
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