It's all a WOW event, but I was really amazed that the shockwave pushed/bulged the atmosphere, which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise given the scale of the explosion and the visible wave front traveling across the Pacific ocean.berkeman said:Wow.
The violent eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano injected an unprecedented amount of water directly into the stratosphere — and the vapor will stay there for years, likely affecting the Earth's climate patterns, NASA scientists say.
The massive amount of water vapor is roughly 10% of the normal amount of vapor found in the stratosphere, equaling more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-tonga-volcano-eruption-metersnine-taller.htmlThe initial tsunami wave created by the eruption of the underwater Hunga Tonga Ha'apai volcano in Tonga in January 2022 reached 90 meters in height, around nine times taller than that from the highly destructive 2011 Japan tsunami, new research has found.
By comparison, the largest tsunami waves due to earthquakes before the Tonga event were recorded following the Tōhoku earthquake near Japan in 2011 and the 1960 Chilean earthquake, reached 10 meters in initial height. Those were more destructive as they happened closer to land, with waves that were wider.
https://mashable.com/article/volcano-eruption-highest-ever-plume-record-tongaTo figure out the extraordinary height of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai's plume, the researchers used images gathered from three different weather satellites operated by three different nations: The U.S.'s GOES-17, Japan's Himawari-8, and South Korea's GK-2A. The pictures, sent back every 10 minutes, allowed the team to see the great blast from a variety of angles, and ultimately deduce the volcanic cloud's height.
Never-before-seen lightning intensity
At its peak intensity, the eruption generated 2,615 lightning flashes per minute, lasting for approximately five minutes. This replaces the previous record set in 1999, where 993 flashes per minute occurred over the southern United States.
Impressive "lightning holes"
Following the eruption, the ash plume rapidly expanded outward in circular ripples, known as gravity waves. These waves triggered the formation of donut-shaped rings of lightning that surfed along their crests, with some of the rings measuring up to 280 km in diameter.