Explore. Experience. Hawaii.
Live
The current USGS alert level, read from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory when you loaded this page.
Kīlauea is restless, and USGS is not calling it an eruption
HVO Kilauea ORANGE/WATCH - No overflows or spattering at north or south vents over the past day; strong glow and flames continue. No reactivation of Sept. 30–Oct. 1 intrusion. Earthquake activity continues underneath Halemaʻumaʻu. No anomalous activity outside the summit.
USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, issued Oct 3, 2026, 8:50 AM HST. Read the notice.
Watch aviation code orange
An eruption is underway or likely with hazards mostly confined to the volcano. Expect closures inside the park and heavy vog downwind. This is also when the viewing is extraordinary.
Moved from Advisory on Sep 7, 2026, 1:00 PM HST.
Normal aviation code green
Background activity. Nothing to plan around, and no eruption to see either.
Both USGS crater cameras, streamed by USGS itself. Nothing loads until you press play.
Night is the interesting time. Any glow is far easier to see after dark, and Hawaii is 6 hours behind the US east coast, so the view most visitors get in the morning is the middle of the Hawaiian night. There is no audio on either camera.
USGS publishes the current alert level and the one before it, and no history at all. This is ours, recorded once a day since August 18, 2026 and appended to rather than rewritten, so it can be checked against the source at any point. Transitions only: a level stands until it moves.
Sep 7, 2026, 1:00 PM HST
Kīlauea moved from Advisory to Watch
Aug 25, 2026, 7:47 PM HST
Kīlauea moved from Watch to Advisory
Aug 25, 2026, 6:38 AM HST
Kīlauea moved from Advisory to Watch
Aug 17, 2026, 3:03 PM HST
Mauna Loa recorded at Normal
Aug 13, 2026, 1:26 AM HST
Kīlauea moved from Watch to Advisory
USGS runs two scales at once and they move together. The alert level is for people on the ground: Normal, Advisory, Watch, Warning. The color code is for aviation, and it is the one that occasionally makes the news look more alarming than the situation is. A red aviation code is about ash in flight paths, not about whether your hotel is safe.
The thing most visitors get backwards: a higher level is usually better for seeing something. Kīlauea at Watch, with an eruption confined to the summit caldera, is the situation people fly in for. Kīlauea at Normal means there is nothing glowing to look at. The level is a hazard scale rather than a quality scale, and for a visitor those often run in opposite directions.
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park stays open during most eruptions. Sections close, sometimes at no notice, and the park has closed entirely during serious events. But the default during an eruption is an open park with closed areas inside it, not a closed park.
Vog is the part that actually affects most trips. Sulfur dioxide from the summit blows southwest and settles over Kona on the usual trade winds, which is why the dry sunny side can be hazy while the eruption is 80 miles away. If anyone in your party has asthma, that matters more than the alert level does.
Nothing on the other islands is affected. Kīlauea is on Hawaiʻi Island. Oʻahu, Maui and Kauaʻi are hundreds of miles away and an eruption changes nothing about a trip to any of them.
You cannot. Eruptions start and stop without useful notice, and any itinerary that depends on seeing lava is an itinerary that can be disappointed. Build the trip so the volcano is a bonus rather than the reason, and if it is erupting when you arrive, rearrange to take advantage of it.
If the volcano is why you are coming, one night in Volcano Village is the single change that matters, because an eruption glow is a night-time sight and the alternative is driving back to Kona at 1am. The seven-day Big Island itinerary is built around that split, and the measured drive times show why it is worth doing.