Hi All,

I'm an avid Popo watcher and note the reports almost daily. Today the alert status was upgraded to Yellow 3. This is the first time ever I have seen it raised above Yellow 2, even with lava flowing down the sides of the volcano. I thought you might want to read today's report.

APRIL 29 13:320 h (18:30 GMT):

In the last 24 hours, the Popocatepetl volcano activity remained in a steady level. There were recorded only 4 low intensity exhalations, accompanied mainly by steam and gas. Also isolated episodes of harmonic tremor were recorded accumulating about 3 hours.

Since this morning we can observe the volcano with an emission of steam and gas (see image).

The reported activity in previous days and the different parameters from the monitoring system are related to the ascent and extrusion of magma at a higher rate than the observed in similar events of this year and end of the last. For this reason there is a probability that a new dome is growing but greater than the observed in the past months.

The analysis of the activity leads to the following probable scenarios: 1. That the present process finishes without consequences
2.That the process of destruction of the present dome generates explosions of variable intensity, able to throw incandescent fragments to distances of 3 to 4 km from the crater. This scenario is the one that at the moment is considered like more probable.
3. That due to the present level of the floor of the crater, some of these explosions can generate piroclastic flows, similar to the one observed on January 22, 2001. The more probable sector could be East, Northeast and Southeast.

The traffic light of volcanic alert is in YELLOW phase 3. It remains the restriction of access in a radius of 12 km from the crater. From the 00:01 hours of April 29, 2003 “Paso de Cortés” remains closed for 48 hours .