Doppler radar to monitoring ash of Popocatepetl volcano

Popocatepetl volcano is one of the most important threats to the safety of the population of Mexico City and some other important cities in Central Mexico. Monitoring volcanic hazards from this volcano aims to provide civil protection authorities with tools to prevent and mitigate the associated risks to its activity. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) conducts surveillance to reduce the risks associated with eruptive activity, particularly, one of the tools used to monitoring ash emissions in real-time is a Doppler radar. This radar is located 11 km North to the volcano at ~4000 masl inside the Iztaccihuatl-Popocatepetl National Park. For the last few years we have collected data of the ash emissions and we already have 8 Tb of raw data that soon will be publicly available. This tool has allowed us to detect activity that otherwise is difficult or even impossible to detect due to meteorological conditions with a delay of less than 5 minutes. For instance, during the eruptive activity of May, 2023, the use of the radar was crucial to alert the National Center for Disaster Prevention (CENAPRED) about the ash emissions direction during a small crisis of the volcano and eventually the authorities decided to close Mexico City’s main airport. Almost all those days were clear enough to see the volcano through webcams, but one weekend was very cloudy, and the wind direction changed during the night and headed to Mexico’s most important airport. Thanks to the use of the radar, we were able to alert the authorities and finally the airport was closed for a few hours. In this presentation we provided further information about the data, the methods used to process the data and the general operation of the radar.