New Updates On POPOCATÉPETL — Ash Plume Rises To 19,000 Feet Over Central Mexico Again!

Ajouté : 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Mexico just woke up to its first major ash advisory of the rainy season. And the volcano that produced it has been smoking continuously for 31 years. At 1:36 this morning, universal time, the Washington volcanic ash advisory center logged a continuous ash column rising from Papa Capitol to 19,000 ft, drifting south at 20 knots over central Mexico.

[00:00:27]This is the volcano that sits 65 km from Mexico City, 22 million people, and 45 km from Puebla, 3.2 million more. Inside the 12 km permanent exclusion zone, nobody is supposed to be standing, and many of them are. Caped, Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention has kept the alert at yellow phase two, level four on a sevenle scale for months. In May of 2023, the same volcano went from moderate to closing two international airports in 3 days. But here's the detail that tells the real story. The ash from May 29th went south where the smaller towns are at Lexco Mecca San Pedro Nexappa Zaletsla communities of farmers, school children and grandmothers who breathe what the wind brings. The rainy season in central Mexico starts in late May.

[00:01:29]Every ash particle that falls on the volcano's glacierfed slopes this week becomes a future laahar the moment heavy rain arrives. Here is what the Washington volcanic ash advisory center was looking at while most of central Mexico was asleep. 1:36 in the morning universal time on the go 19 satellite imagery. A column of volcanic ash rising from Popo Capel. The plume extended from the surface to flight level 1919,000 ft, 5,800 m. The windeloft was carrying it south at 20 knots in Mexico City. The analysts at Cenipre were not surprised.

[00:02:12]They have been watching this pattern for weeks. Yellow phase 2 level 4 on a sevenle scale has been the standing alert since long before this advisory came in. Inside the crater, the lava dome has been steadily refilling. The seismic stations on the flanks have been picking up volcanic tremor at elevated background. Sulfur dioxide emissions have been running consistently above baseline. May 29th was not a new event for the volcano. It was the next event in a sequence the observatory has been tracking since spring.

[00:02:50]Here is why this advisory is different from most. Most volcanic ash advisories in any given week come from volcanoes you have never heard of. Chevaluc in Kamchatka San in the Andes. They erupt constantly.

[00:03:07]Airlines reroute around them. The ash falls into the ocean or onto uninhabited tundra. Nobody on the ground notices.

[00:03:17]Papo Capatel is the opposite of that.

[00:03:20]The same 19,000 ft ash plume that would be a number on an aviation screen above the bearing sea is above central Mexico a forecast on a school bulletin board.

[00:03:31]It is a notification on millions of phones. It is a question a hospital pediatrician in atlxo has to answer when the third asthmatic child in an hour shows up coughing. Here is who lives around this volcano. Popo Catapal sits at the meeting point of three Mexican states, Mexico, Puebla, and Melos. Its summit reaches 5,3 and 93 m, the second highest peak in North America, capped by retreating glaciers. The Aztecs named it Smoking Mountain. The current eruptive phase started in December 1994 and has not stopped since. Inside a 100 km radius of the crater, 25 million people. Most of them live their lives like the volcano is just scenery. But scenery does not produce ashfall.

[00:04:28]Scenery does not close airports. Scenery does not pile thickening layers of fine glass like particles on rooftops during the rainy season.

[00:04:38]Dr. Hugo Delgado Granados of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Geoysics Institute has spent decades studying this volcano. His summary of what the surrounding population faces in eight words, ash is the main issue for the region. The hazard from Popa Capotel is not localized to one slope, one valley, one community. It depends on where the wind goes, what the ash lands on, and whether the rain follows. What living next to a smoking mountain actually looks like, it is the school dismissal in Amakamecha being checked against the morning ash forecast.

[00:05:21]The 12 km exclusion zone is enforced, but the ash does not respect zones. Here is what moderate ash actually does to a region this populated. Volcanic ash is not soft. It is not soot. It is finely shattered volcanic glass microscopic shards with hard angular edges. When it falls, it reaches the lungs first small enough to bypass the body's filters sharp enough to araid the lower airways.

[00:05:54]Children, the elderly, and anyone with asthma feel it within hours. It reaches the eyes, scraping the cornea. It reaches the roads where visibility drops and tires lose traction. It reaches the engines. Turboan jets ingest ash. The silica melts inside the combustion chamber and the engine flames out. It reaches the rooftops, the water tanks, and the fields. This is exactly what happened in May of 2023.

[00:06:24]Ash columns climbed past 10,000 meters.

[00:06:28]The wind sent the plume toward Mexico City. The wind sent it toward Puebla.

[00:06:35]Within 72 hours, both international airports were closed. Schools sent children home. Sanapid briefly raised the alert to yellow phase 3. The volcano did not produce a major explosive eruption that week. It produced moderate activity sustained with the wind in the wrong direction. And then the rain. Late May is the start of central Mexico's rainy season. When heavy rain falls on volcanic ash on Papa Capel's glaciated slopes, the mixture becomes a laahar moving at the speed of a river with the density of wet concrete. Laahar do not need an eruption. They need only ash and rain. The Zitla Valley on the northeastern flank is the historical corridor. Here is why this volcano never leaves the monitoring screens. The Popo Capel Volcanological Observatory was established by Cenipurd in July of 1994.

[00:07:35]5 months later, the volcano reawakened.

[00:07:38]Since that December, the observatory has been staffed every hour of every day.

[00:07:45]over 31 consecutive years. Eight seismic stations sit on the flanks listening for the rock movements that precede an eruption. Three cameras run continuously at Tamakas at Tianguis Manalco on the flank of Ista Schwatel.

[00:08:03]Geochemical sensors track sulfur dioxide.

[00:08:07]The Nense network watches the ground for the slightest swelling. What Ceniperd is watching this week. The rate of ash emission. The dome inside the crater slowly refilled by magma from below. The frequency of volcanian explosions.

[00:08:26]The amplitude of volcanic tremor and the two variables. Nothing on the volcano controls the wind direction tomorrow and the rainfall forecast for the week. And it is still not over. Caprid has not lowered the alert. The cameras are still running. The plume has cleared the immediate forecast tracks, but the dome inside the crater is still being refilled and the rainy season is just beginning. The question now is not whether Papo Capel is about to erupt catastrophically.

[00:09:00]Ciprid has not said that. The question is whether the wind shifts toward Mexico City or Pueba on a heavier emission day and whether the people downwind, downstream, and downs slope of this volcano are paying attention. The ash plume is not huge, but the volcano is huge and so is the population living around it.

[00:09:22]19,000 ft. 25 million people within 100 km. One volcano that has been smoking since 1994.

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