Today's feature focuses on one of the many recent violent explosions of the active volcano on Soufriere Hills, Montserrat.
Volcanic ash is an aviation hazard, as it can cause serious damage to aircraft engines.
The detection of the plume both day and night is very important. Figure 1. depicts hourly imagery from 1515-1815 UTC on 7 August 1997. Montserrat is located at the center of each of the images and is depicted by a yellow dot. Notice the umbrella shaped cloud at 1615 UTC and the movement of the ash cloud in both easterly and westerly directions in the following 2 hours. The 10.7-12.0 micrometer difference product for the same time period is shown in Figure 2.