PUFF: A high-resolution volcanic ash tracking model

This paper presents a volcanic ash tracking model referred to as PUFF. The model was developed to simulate the movement of airborne ash in near real-time following an eruption for the purposes of hazard warning. The model tracks particles through a Lagrangian formulation of advection, fallout and turbulent diffusion using a random-walk technique. Three recent eruption events are simulated using archived data. AVHRR images from these events are used for comparison and to validate model results.