Forecasting Ashfall Impacts from a Yellowstone Supereruption

• The plumes from such eruptions can rise 30 to 50 km into the atmosphere, three to five times as high as most jets fly.
• Yellowstone has produced three supereruptions in the past 2.1 million years. The most recent was 0.6 million years ago.
• Eruptions this large can create their own continental-scale wind field, pushing ash more than 1,000 km against the prevailing, ambient wind field.

Speaker: Larry Mastin, USGS