Kīlauea
Advisory aviation code yellow
Elevated unrest above background, or a pause in an eruption that may resume. The park is normally open and normal precautions apply.
Moved from Watch on Aug 13, 2026, 1:26 AM HST.
Live
Is Kīlauea erupting right now?
The current USGS alert level, read from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory when you loaded this page.
No, Kīlauea is not currently erupting
HVO Kilauea YELLOW/ADVISORY - Kīlauea volcano is not erupting; the summit eruption in Halemaʻumaʻu is paused. Preliminary data indicate the onset of the next fountaining episode is likely between August 21 and August 27.
USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, issued Aug 19, 2026, 9:20 AM HST. Read the notice.
Mauna Loa
Normal aviation code green
Background activity. Nothing to plan around, and no eruption to see either.
Recorded level changes
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.
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Aug 17, 2026, 3:03 PM HST
Mauna Loa recorded at Normal
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Aug 13, 2026, 1:26 AM HST
Kīlauea moved from Watch to Advisory
What the levels actually mean for a trip
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.
What does not change
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.
Where to look when it matters
- USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, the source of everything above, with webcams and daily updates.
- Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, for what is actually open today.
- Hawaiʻi County Civil Defense, which is the authority during an emergency.
Planning around it
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.