English: Mexico’s “El Popo” has a long reputation as an angry volcano, with ancient eruptions violent enough to trigger vast mud slides which buried Aztec settlements, including entire pyramids. For most of the 20th century the Popocatépetl volcano rested in dormancy, but it came back to life in 1994. It has been intermittently actively active since that time, and has been particularly restless in November.

According to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, from November 1 through 7 there were 200 – 361 emissions reported each day, some of which contained ash. Crater incandescence was noted almost nightly, and increased seismicity on November 3 coincided with a period of Strombolian activity which ejected gas, water vapor and ash, along with incandescent material, the latter which was ejected 500 m (1,640 feet) on the flanks. Two other explosions were detected on November 4, with the release of a continuous gas-and-ash plume that drifted to the west southwest, dropping ash on several cities in the state of Morelos. Two more explosions that day ejected incandescent material 200 m (656 feet) onto the flanks. Additional substantial explosions were noted on November 5, 6, and 7.

On November 4, 2017, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of a large ash plume from Popocatépetl which was blowing west southwest. The 5,426 m- (17,801 ft.)-tall stratovolcano sit about 70 km (43.4 mi) southeast of Mexico City.