Tonga volcanic eruption was felt in Hungary

Saturday night, the shock wave of the Tonga volcanic eruption hit Hungary, even though the 17 000 km distance

The eruption

The submarine volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupted in the Pacific Ocean area last Saturday. The intense eruption in a short time created a volcanic cloud that reached a height of 20 kilometers and spread 5 kilometers wide, which was also very spectacular on satellite images. Within the huge cloud, approx. 190,000 flashes of lightning were detected, says idokep.hu.

The eruption set off a strong shock wave, the strength of which broke through windows on the surrounding islands. The sound blast could be heard in New Zealand, and even seven hours after the outbreak, in Alaska, more than 9,000 miles away. The pressure wave has since traveled all over the planet, detected everywhere by the air pressure sensors of the meteorological stations.

It was felt in Hungary, even twice

The pressure disturbance passed through all stations in Hungary as well, typically causing changes between 0.5 and 1 hectopascal, but produced more than 1 hectopascal change at a few two locations, writes blikk.hu.

Between 8 and 9 o’clock on Saturday evening, a rapid increase and decrease in air pressure of 1-1.5 hPa, followed by even smaller pressure fluctuations, was observed. After 2 a.m., the second pressure wave arrived, which appears on the graphs as a transient decrease of 1 hPa.

The meteorological service also pointed out that as the shock wave of the Tonga volcanic eruption reached Hungary from two directions, the noise could be observed twice in the measurements.

Few weeks ago, Hungarian scientists picked up vibrations from an earthquake in Serbia, then the vibration measured was high as 3.7 on the Richter scale. We wrote about that here.

• Read also: “The King of wines, the wine of Kings” – History of the Tokaj region

Source: idokep.hu, blikk.hu