Lahar!!

Well, it happened today! And I am so pleased! Ross is heading up the mountain tomorrow on a week long school trip. This lahar has been expected for years and scientists could see that the water level was rising and an overflow was imminent. There was a lot of rain last night and just before 11am this morning over it went. I sat glued to http://www.horizons.govt.nz/laharcam.asp?big=true all day and saved some photos.

This is what a concrete post standing 6 metres high in the river usually looks like:


This is what it looked like much earlier today at 12.39pm:




This is what it looked like at the height of the lahar flood today at 12.48pm:



And this is what it looked like at 6pm tonight:

And for those of you who are not in NZ - the lahar came from the crater lake at the top of Mt Ruapehu which is that beautiful mountain on my banner