An automatic procedure to forecast tephra fallout

Tephra fallout constitutes a serious threat to communities around active volcanoes. Reliable short-term forecasts represent a valuable aid for scientists and civil authorities to mitigate the effects of fallout on the surrounding areas during an episode of crisis. We present a platform-independent automatic procedure with the aim to daily forecast transport and deposition of volcanic particles. The procedure builds on a series of programs and interfaces that automate the data flow and the execution and subsequent postprocess of fallout models. Firstly, the procedure downloads regional meteorological forecasts for the area and time interval of interest, filters and converts data from its native format, and runs the CALMET diagnostic model to obtain the wind field and other micro-meteorological variables on a finer local-scale 3-D grid defined by the user. Secondly, it assesses the distribution of mass along the eruptive column, commonly by means of the radial averaged buoyant plume equations depending on the prognostic wind field and on the conditions at the vent (granulometry, mass eruption rate, etc). All these data serve as input for the fallout models. The initial version of the procedure includes only two Eulerian models, HAZMAP and FALL3D, the latter available as serial and parallel implementations. However, the procedure is designed to incorporate easily other models in a near future with minor modifications on the model source code. The last step is to postprocess the outcomes of models to obtain maps written in standard file formats. These maps contain plots of relevant quantities such as predicted ground load, expected deposit thickness and, for the case of or 3-D models, concentration on air or flight safety concentration thresholds.