Whakaari activity disrupts Tauranga flights, now back to normal

NZ Herald

12-05-2025

'On Sunday morning, with a light wind, the plume reached high elevations, making the volcanic activity appear stronger. None of these plumes had the potential for ash to fall on the Bay of Plenty coastline,' Lamb said.
GNS, through the Geonet programme, provided up-to-date information about ash potentially falling on the ground. MetService, via the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, was responsible for providing advisories about the presence of ash in the air for aircraft.
'This activity resulted in the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre issuing an advisory causing flights to be cancelled in and out of Tauranga,' Lamb said.
'The steam and gas plume are typical behaviour for Whakaari/White Island and consistent with what we'd expect to see at Volcanic Alert Level 3 and Aviation Colour Code Orange.
'These levels acknowledge the current level of activity but also reflect the degree of uncertainty about the level of unrest due to the current lack of consistent, usable real-time monitoring data – volcanic activity could escalate with little or no warning.'
On Sunday afternoon, the Tauranga region experienced a light easterly from about 1pm. This changed to a light southwesterly overnight and was expected to change to a light westerly by Monday evening, according to the MetService forecast.
'We do not expect there to be ashfall on the Bay of Plenty coastline, but during northerly or easterly wind conditions, locals might notice a sulphur odour caused by the minor ash load in the steam and gas plume,' Lamb said.
Good information and advice about the impacts of the steam and gas plume or volcanic ash was available online at BOP Emergency Managemen t, NEMA and Health New Zealand.