Pele Pops Her Cork, Christmas No Mo', Chopomania

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

1/7/23

Aloha All --

Well, Pele must have been jealous of all the New Year's fireworks and decided to put on a display of her

Pele's Fireworks!

own this week.  As you may know, on Thursday afternoon Kilauea, our most active volcano on the island, decided to wake up again after a brief 1-month snooze.  This has made for some great photo-ops for the news media, and the photos and video make it look like the whole island is once again about to be covered by lava.  Not so.  The eruption is exactly where it was before, in a crater within the summit caldera of Kilauea in Volcanoes National Park, and for the time being it isn't going anywhere. It happened about 4:30 p.m. at the summit, and for a while it was quite a show -- multiple fountains, some reaching about 160 ft. high.  Things have settled down considerably now,  but imagine being a tourist who just happened to be watching at that beginning moment!!  The location is the crusted-over lava lake that was active for about 1.5 years up until December. Lava underneath the crust is forcing its way through cracks in the crust, and that's what produced the fountains. For a couple of weeks there were indications that the magma system was recharging because volcanologists detected a number of small earthquakes and the summit was inflating. Here's Thursday's official description:

"The summit eruption of Kīlauea that began within Halemaʻumaʻu crater just after 4:30 p.m. HST today, January 5, 2023, continues at this time.  All activity is confined to Kīlauea summit region, within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. There are no indications of activity migrating out of the summit region. Multiple minor fountains are active in the central eastern portion of Halema‘uma‘u crater floor; the largest lava fountain is consistently about 10 meters (32 feet) high. Fountain bursts up to 30 meters (98 feet) high occurred around 7:45 p.m. and there were several bursts up to 50 meters (164 feet) high during the initial part of the eruption. Lava flows have inundated much of the crater floor (which is nearly 300 acres or 120 hectares).  As of approximately 7:30 p.m. about 10 meters (32 feet) depth of new lava had been added to the crater floor."

Note, this is all happening far from us -- about 100 miles -- and the worst effect here at our house will be the vog that will be produced from the degassing of the lava. It will take several days for this to happen, however.  Unlike the Mauna Loa fissure eruption, the gases are to the south of us and we are much more likely to be effected by them because of the prevailing wind patterns.  Another example of what it means to live with lava.

Aside from Pele popping her cork,  the first week of '23 was....well, not exactly an auspicious start to the new year in other ways.  I learned another new fun climate term, "atmospheric river" which, like "bomb cyclone" is yet another way to describe really crappy weather on the mainland. Floods, blizzards, high winds, etc. Not here, however, which was sunny and pleasant most of the week, though our pool remains at a brisk 77d because of the cool nights we've been having. I doubt you're shedding any tears for me. Also not boding well is the fiasco playing out in the new congress.  I'm getting really tired of extreme groups on the far left and far right hijacking the country, but it looks like we're in for another year of it....

Back to more mundane matters, all of my outside Christmas decorations are now down and stowed away.  The last to be decommissioned were our two driveway deer, which are a challenge to dismantle and  compactly bundle into their storage bags.  We left our tree up all week to enjoy the colorful lights at night.  However, this weekend it, too, will be taken apart and stuffed into its box until next year. Although I don't enjoy the discombobulation that the holidays entail, this year didn't seem as bad to me, I think because Christmas and New Year's fell on Sundays rather than weekdays.  Anyway, I'm enjoying getting back to a more "normal" routine.

My efforts to whack back the jungle continued successfully this week, thanks in part to my gardener and his super long pole saw and young muscles.  On Tuesday he hauled away a huge pile of limbs and foliage to the green waste dump.  It looks much more under control now, though of course this is illusory.  It will be back in a year or so.

On Thursday Karen played golf and I went to Planet Fitness.  She played with her retired veterinarian friend who, after fighting Covid for two weeks, felt strong enough to play.  They started late and finished 11 holes.  Karen did pretty well and got one par (!), and saw 2 of the 3 white peacocks.  The Nenes haven't yet brought out their babies for public display, except for the family with three that we saw last week. I'll probably go next week and hopefully see more.

Ok, that's it.  Certainly an "interesting" first week of '23.  Hope you all are staying warm, healthy, and away from the crazies.  Off to market and the beach.