Kīlauea stays on Orange Watch as magma pressurizes the summit

HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, Hawaiʻi. The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory kept Kīlauea at a Volcano Alert Level of WATCH and an Aviation Color Code of ORANGE in its daily update issued October 13, 2026. In its summary, the observatory reported that multiple overflows and low fountaining occurred from the north vent over the preceding 24 hours, and that Kīlauea's summit remains at a high level of pressurization, with changes in eruptive activity or location within the summit region possible.

All current eruptive activity remains confined to a closed area of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, inside Halemaʻumaʻu crater. That has been the case since the current episode sequence began on December 23, 2024. However, USGS notes that recent intrusions show the location of eruptive activity could change, and that intrusive activity can itself produce earthquakes, ground cracks, and small landslides.

Summit Dynamics | What the Instruments Recorded on October 13

The observatory logged a distinct sequence at the north vent. Just before 11:30 a.m. HST, the vent began to vigorously dome fountain for nearly an hour, feeding a flow that extended almost a kilometer from the vent. USGS described it as the longest and most vigorous dome fountain since September 30. Two further substantial fountain and overflow episodes followed at roughly 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. HST, lasting about 40 minutes and 20 minutes respectively. Interspersed between and after those longer events were about 15 smaller episodes that lasted only minutes and produced flows under 300 feet, or 100 meters, long.

The instrumental record points the same direction as the visual one. Summit tiltmeters showed slight tilt increases over the 24-hour period, including at the Uēkahuna instrument recorded as UWD. GPS stations on opposite sides of Halemaʻumaʻu, identified as CRIM and UWEV, show a small increase in the distance between them since the end of September. Twenty shallow earthquakes were located across the summit region, predominantly in the south caldera area.

Separately, the observatory reported that rates of seismicity and ground deformation remain low in both the East Rift Zone and the Southwest Rift Zone, with sulfur dioxide emissions from the East Rift Zone below the detection limit. That matters for hazard planning, because activity migrating onto a rift zone is the scenario that could carry lava beyond the crater and toward communities outside the park.

The Pressure and Venting Loop | Why Fountaining Follows Drainback

Between the sustained fountaining events, USGS observed gas jetting, often with sprays of spatter produced during drainback of lava within the vents. In that cycle, accumulating volcanic gas lifts the magma column until lava spills over the vent rim. When the pressurized gas escapes in a jetting burst, the column collapses back down the conduit and draws surrounding lava inward with it, throwing spatter against the vent walls.

The pattern immediately above the vent is part of a larger structural story. Updated interferometric synthetic aperture radar, or InSAR, images taken after a dike intrusion on September 30 and October 1 show that the intrusion has been slightly contracting since the evening of October 2. Minor intrusion-related motion was observed along many faults and cracks formed during the 2018 caldera collapse, evidence that pressurized magma is testing weaknesses across the broader summit complex. USGS also reported no signs of significant deformation outside the caldera, including in the south caldera region.

Vog and Ground Instability | The Hazard That Reaches Beyond the Crater

For communities downwind of the summit, the day-to-day hazard is not lava but air. Kīlauea releases water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide continuously, and sulfur dioxide reacts in the atmosphere with sunlight, oxygen, and moisture to form fine acidic sulfate aerosols known as vog, or volcanic air pollution. Trade winds carry the haze downwind, where it can irritate the respiratory system and affect sensitive populations. The Hawaiʻi Interagency Vog Information Dashboard tracks those conditions, and the public health desk has reported on how particulate and gas exposure affects community air quality.

A second, less discussed hazard is tephra. Lava fountains shatter molten rock into glassy fragments including volcanic ash, pumice, scoria, Pele's hair, and reticulite. Heavier particles fall near the vents while lighter material is wafted farther, and previously deposited particles can be remobilized in windy conditions after an episode. USGS operates a public tephra reporting form precisely because residents are the most effective sensors for fallout that instruments miss.

Ground instability is the third. USGS describes Halemaʻumaʻu's crater wall as an exceptionally hazardous zone where instability, ground cracking, and rockfalls can be enhanced by earthquakes, and notes that tephra on the caldera rim is prone to cracking, slumping, and small landslides that sometimes expose hot and molten material beneath. That rim has been closed to the public since late 2007. On October 7, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park announced additional trail closures tied to the recent activity.

Forecast Uncertainty | Why USGS Will Not Predict the Next Episode

Here is the part of the story the alert level does not convey. Kīlauea erupted episodically from two vents in Halemaʻumaʻu between December 23, 2024 and August 25, 2026, with fountaining episodes generally lasting less than 12 hours and separated by pauses of two weeks or more. That rhythm was broken. Since episode 54 ended on August 25, ground deformation at the summit has been irregular, and USGS states plainly that those irregular patterns prevent forecast modeling for when the next fountaining episode can occur.

The observatory does describe the physical state. Ground deformation indicates the magma chamber beneath Halemaʻumaʻu is pressurized beyond the level typically seen before recent fountaining events, and the September 30 to October 1 dike intrusion disrupted that pattern further, with tilt since increasing slowly in stretches interspersed with decreased or flat readings. The vigorous October 13 overflows indicate magma remains very near the surface in the established vent complex and can still generate smaller fountains.

USGS lists three plausible paths rather than one prediction: another fountaining episode from the north and south vent complex, intrusive activity beneath Kaluapele, or magma exploiting existing weak crack systems in the summit region to erupt passively, with little or no seismicity or deformation. That last scenario is the hardest to anticipate, because it produces the least warning signal.

HVO says it continues to monitor Kīlauea closely and remains in contact with Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and the Hawaiʻi County Civil Defense Agency. HoneyNewspaper's science desk covers how observatory instrumentation shapes public understanding of geophysical risk, alongside our reporting on how Earth's early chemistry is read from rock and the environment desk tracks air quality and ecosystem stress across the communities most exposed to it.

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