Ash rain in Santa Venerita in Sicily after the new eruption of Mount Etna

A new violent episode of lava fountaining or paroxysm is in progress this morning from the volcano’s central summit crater, the Voragine. At around a.m. local time, the continuous, but so-far only moderate strombolian activity at the Voragine began to increase rapidly, accompanied by a steeply rising value of volcanic tremor amplitude, as typical during its frequent paroxysms. Shortly before 5 a.m., this activity turned to tall lava fountaining reaching several hundreds of meters in height. Three hours later, at the time of writing this post, the eruption is still in progress. A tall ash plume is rising 3-4 km above the summit and drifting towards the ESE. Heavy ash fall is occurring on the southeastern to eastern slopes of the volcano, likely affecting the towns of Zafferana, Milo, Giarre. The airport of Catania is likely going to be spared this time. This marks thus the 5th paroxysm of the Voragine since the new series of paroxysms began in July. It came after almost 2 weeks after the previous event during 23 July.