Question: can you predict where and when in the world the next volcano will erupt

David Pyle answered on 16 Mar 2011:

Hello Virtnack – the quick answer is ‘no’, at least not in any useful way.

There are about fifty volcanoes which are active almost all the time: Kilauea, Hawaii, has been erupting lava since 1983; Stromboli, Italy, has been exploding on and off several times a day for the past 2000 years. As far as we can tell, these volcanoes will continue to erupt for the near future. It would be easy to predict that there will be another small explosion on Stromboli today – but that would a meaningless prediction.

In fact, earthquake and volcano scientists prefer to use the word ‘forecast’, rather than ‘prediction’: a forecast of an eruption should identify, with estimates of error or uncertainty (or probabilities), when, where and how an eruption will occur. The ‘how’ part should include a forecast of the likely size, eruption style, and effects. All in all, this is quite a difficult task. With volcanoes, we are usually in the fortunate position that when something starts happening, it takes a while (days to weeks to months) to turn into a full-blown eruption. Once something is happening, then if we are making the right measurements, we have a chance to start to forecast what will happen, and when.

At the moment, there are a number of volcanoes showing unrest, after some period of quiet – and these may, or may not, develop into something more substantial over the next few months. A sobering thought, though, is that most of the major eruptions of the past 100 years happened at volcanoes that were not even known to be active!