Monitoring at Taupō Volcano shows that both ground deformation and earthquake activity have continued to decrease over the past few weeks. These monitoring data indicate the level of unrest has now returned to what is normally seen as the background. The Volcanic Alert Level is now lowered to Level 0 for Taupō Volcano.
At around 3pm NZDT on Friday 19 May, a M7.7 earthquake occurred about 400 km to the east of Loyalty Islands (800 km south-west of Fiji) causing small tsunami on coasts around the south-west Pacific, and strong currents and surges for New Zealand.
Whakatane-based webcam images and monitoring flights confirm continuing steam and gas plumes, and no significant changes in the active crater. The Volcanic Alert Level remains at 2.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is encouraging people to get prepared as a new weather system signals significant rainfall over the next two days. The ground in many parts of Aotearoa is already saturated and with more heavy rain about to arrive there is an increased risk of flooding and landslides.
In January we investigated ongoing slow slip events that our sensors have been detecting beneath the North Island, in Kāpiti and Manawatū. Today we check in on this activity and explore a possible link to the recent Pōrangahau earthquake sequence.
Te Wai ā-moe (Ruapehu Crater Lake) has slowly cooled from 32 °C to 21 °C since January 2023. Other monitoring indicators also remain within normal ranges and the level of volcanic unrest remains low. The Volcanic Alert Level remains at Level 1 and the Aviation Colour Code remains Green.
Welcome, haere mai to another GeoNet Data Blog. Today we delve into data collection rates. How often we collect different types of data, why they are different, and what it means to you as a data user.
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake with severe shaking has occurred Wed 26 April at 10:16AM, the earthquake was located within 5km of Pōrangahau and was 22km deep. This was closely followed by a M5.4 aftershock. Both earthquakes were felt widely throughout the North Island.
Welcome, haere mai to another GeoNet Data Blog. Today we ask how the recent Kawerau earthquake swarm compares with other nearby and recent swarms.