Airborne ash cloud forecasts

The Ash3d model was developed by the USGS to forecast how volcanic ash plume will interact with wind, and where, how high, and how fast ash particles will be transported in the atmosphere. AVO runs these models twice daily when a volcano is restless by assuming a reasonable hypothetical eruption altitude and duration. The maps show the model results of volcanic ash load (mass/area) and cloud altitude. During an actual eruption, AVO will update the forecast with actual observations (eruption start time and duration, plume height) as they become available, and these plots will be automatically updated. The National Weather Service Alaska Aviation Weather Unit will issue the official airborne warning product and post them at weather.gov/aawu

During an actual eruption, see National Weather Service forecasts of airborne ash hazard to aircraft (SIGMETS:https://weather.gov/aawu/and Volcanic Ash Advisories:https://weather.gov/vaac).