Tonga pressure wave rolls through Valley

When Krakatoa exploded Aug. 27, 1883, barometers around the world recorded the passing of a pressure wave seven times, according to historian Simon Winchester in his book named after the famous volcano.

On Saturday, a much smaller eruption near Tonga sent a similar pressure wave through Carson Valley, recorded early Saturday morning.

Centerville weather watcher Dave Benjamin said his home weather station recorded a spike in air pressure 4:09 a.m. Saturday that he attributes to the Tonga Volcano.

The eruption was 8:14 p.m. local time and Benjamin calculated that it took eight hours to reach this corner of Nevada from the other side of the world at 767 mph.

National Weather Service Reno meteorologist Chris Smallcomb confirmed that a spike across Western Nevada was observed on instruments in Reno.

“I saw a bunch of these pressure trace spikes across the U.S. on Saturday, so that spike makes sense to me as a Tonga wave passing by,” Smallcomb said on Wednesday. “It’s pretty incredible the shock wave made it so far.”

University of Nevada, Reno, Atmospheric researcher Neil Lareau posted a similar trace on Twitter, according to Smallcomb.

“While Tonga was not on the Krakatoa scale (Krakatoa echoed around the world twice), it was still a pretty big bang,” Benjamin said.