how far will the pyoclastic cloud travel and will it go in all directions?
Well, to the west it is expected to go just a few klicks past Spokane, WA.
Hell On Earth: The Yellowstone Caldera
Most of you might not know that below the peaceful park of Yellowstone lies one of the largest volcanoes on the planet. It is a resurgent caldera. According to Roger Weller, professor
at Cochise College, this is a form of volcanism in which a collapsed crater is formed after the explosive eruption of a magma chamber that has uplifted the surface of the earth. The Yellowstone caldera is also known by a different name.
It is a name given to only a select few of volcanoes around the world. It is referred to as a super volcano.
Not if, but when this volcano erupts it will be a disaster of epic proportion. The blast
would be one million times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World
War II, and one thousand times worse than the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Surrounding areas of 60 miles would be completely obliterated. The entire western United States would be blanketed by ash and it could reach as far as Washington D.C. No one would be safe within one thousand miles of the eruption.
Next would come the pyroclastic flows (pyroclastic cloud) released from the eruption.
The pyroclastic flow is basically a high speed avalanche of hot ash, rock fragment, and gas that moves during explosive eruptions. The flow can reach up to fifteen-hundred degrees Fahrenheit and move at speeds ranging from one-hundred to one-hundred fifty miles per hour and is capable of knocking down and burning anything in its path. The flow from this particular eruption could reach as far as Las Vegas.
http://skywalker.cochise.edu/wellerr/students/yellowstone2/project.htm
To be caught in the flow wouldn’t matter very much because it wouldn’t last very long.
If, for some reason, breathing the hot gas and volcanic ash didn’t kill you the temperature inside alone would be enough to boil your skin off. In some cases your brain would explode out of your skull due to it boiling out of control. Although you could be one of the lucky ones and just have your body literally blown to pieces after coming into contact with one of these flows.
As amazingly awful as that sounds it isn’t even the worst part. When it finally blows, the amount of volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide released into upper atmosphere could prove to be catastrophic. The gases released would create a thin cloud like sheet around the planet blocking the sun’s rays for up to approximately six years and would create a mini ice age. Temperatures would drop globally anywhere from ten to twenty degrees. Snow in June and frost in August would easily kill off the “bread basket of North America” as well as the “bread basket of Europe.”
No crops being grown would easily lead to the starvation of millions and potentially billions. Farm animals would die due to breathing in the ash being circulated. This event could easily wipe out sixty percent of the species that occupy the planet today.