(The Economic Collapse Blog)—Have you noticed that there has been a very alarming rise in volcanic activity in recent months? According to Volcano Discovery, 38 volcanoes around the globe have recently erupted, and dozens more are showing signs of either unrest or minor activity. In all my years, I have never seen anything quite like this, and I am entirely convinced that seismic activity will only increase during the months ahead. Here in the United States, I am watching Mt. Rainier very closely, and Yellowstone is a threat that is constantly hanging over our heads. But scientists are warning that Mount Spurr could actually be the next volcano to erupt inside U.S. territory…
Scientists have warned that a massive volcano in Alaska has a 50-50 chance erupting in the near future.
The 11,000-foot-tall Mount Spurr sits 77 miles from Anchorage— the state’s largest city which is home to nearly 300,000 people.
Over the last 10 months, it has been experiencing an unusually high amount of small earthquakes.
A full-blown eruption of Mount Spurr would be spectacular, but not much damage would occur because that area of Alaska is very lightly populated.
On the other hand, a full-blown eruption of Mount Rainier would have the potential to be cataclysmic, and we are being told that “it is only a matter of time” before it happens…
Experts say it is only a matter of time until Mount Rainier, one of the most dangerous volcanos in the US, unleashes itself upon the Pacific Northwest.
This huge, active stratovolcano looms over nearly 90,000 people living in cities such as Seattle, Tacoma, and Yakima in Washington as well as Portland, Oregon.
Most people living in Seattle and Tacoma have no idea how much danger they are in.
But those that have closely studied Mount Rainier certainly understand…
‘Mount Rainier keeps me up at night because it poses such a great threat to the surrounding communities,’ Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist and ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists previously said during an appearance on CNN.
When this volcano eventually blows, it won’t be lava flows or choking clouds of ash that threaten surrounding cities, but lahars: violent, fast-moving mudflows that can tear across entire communities in a matter of minutes.
For a moment, I would like for you to imagine a giant wall of super-heated mud rushing at you at 50 miles per hour.
For those that are located in the direct path, there will be little hope of escape.
But evacuation drills are regularly held anyway. In fact, on March 21st of last year local communities conducted “the world’s largest lahar evacuation drill”…
On March 21, 2024, more than 45,000 students in communities south of Seattle and west of Mount Rainier participated in the world’s largest lahar evacuation drill. Although the Regional Lahar Evacuation Drill is held every two years, this year’s was the largest ever. The East Pierce Interlocal Coalition (EPIC) Emergency Management Team coordinates the drill, with support from local government officials, school districts, first responders, emergency managers, volunteers, and state and federal agencies, such as the U.S. Geological Survey. Students from Puyallup, Sumner-Bonney Lake, Orting, White River and Carbonado, Washington participated in the event.
Because Mount Rainier is so close to highly populated areas, there won’t be much time to warn local residents.
The super-heated mud will move incredibly fast, and it will show no mercy.
Today, much of Tacoma and much of South Seattle are actually built on “100-foot-thick ancient mudflows from eruptions of Mount Rainier”…
‘Tacoma and South Seattle are built on 100-foot-thick ancient mudflows from eruptions of Mount Rainier,’ Phoenix said. This is a strong indication that these populous cities lie within the path of potential lahars generated by a future eruption.
Of course the Pacific Northwest is also facing the threat of a giant tsunami that is produced as a result of a massive rupture along the Cascadia Subduction Zone…
Scientists are sounding the alarm after a series of earthquakes rocked the West Coast last week, warning a major seismic event is ‘inevitable.’
Earthquakes trigger tsunamis by causing the ocean floor to rise or fall, pushing water above to form a massive wave.
But it isn’t just California at risk, Washington sits along the Cascadia Subduction Zone that is capable of a ‘megaquake’, they said.
One scientist that has studied the Cascadia Subduction Zone very closely is warning that a large enough earthquake could potentially “generate tsunami waves up to 80 feet tall”…
Harold Tobin, a co-author of the paper and the director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said that although the data will help fine-tune projections, it doesn’t change a tough-to-swallow reality of living in the Pacific Northwest.
“We have the potential for earthquakes and tsunamis as large as the biggest ones we’ve experienced on the planet,” said Tobin, who is also a University of Washington professor. “Cascadia seems capable of generating a magnitude 9 or a little smaller or a little bigger.”
A quake that powerful could cause shaking that lasts about five minutes and generate tsunami waves up to 80 feet tall. It would damage well over half a million buildings, according to emergency planning documents.
Can you imagine what that would look like? We are talking about a natural disaster that would be absolutely unparalleled in our history. Of course Yellowstone has the potential to produce a disaster that would be even larger than that.
If a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano were to occur, everything within 50 miles “would be all but annihilated”, virtually the entire country would be covered in thick ash, and the whole world would experience a volcanic winter for an extended period of time…
While the blast would kill thousands and send rivers of molten lava pouring up to 40 miles (64km) from the eruption site, this would only be the start of the devastation.
Experts predict that every town in a 50-mile (80km) radius would be all but annihilated by the same pyroclastic flows that created the petrified figures of Pompeii.
Meanwhile, the United States would be blanketed in a thick layer of choking ash as the world plunges into a volcanic winter which could last for years.
A volcanic winter caused by a full-blown eruption of Yellowstone would cause a dramatic decline in global temperatures, and that would make it extremely difficult to grow much of anything…
Professor Mather says that some estimates suggest global cooling of around 5°C (9°F) for several years with temperatures potentially falling up to 10°C (18°F) in the first year.
A recent pre-print study conducted by the Arctic University of Norway suggests that the maximum cooling a volcanic event could produce is 12°C (21.6°F).
If that were the case, countries around the world could experience exceptionally cold winters and could face widespread crop shortages as harvests failed.
Outside of the United States, the Phlegraean Fields are being rocked by hundreds of earthquakes…
Seismologists, volcanologists, and officials from Naples are racing against the clock as they implement school closures, set up emergency shelters, and plan evacuation routes for residents living within the region’s Campi Flegiri area, also known as the Phlegraean Fields, after over 600 earthquakes have been recorded since Saturday, with magnitudes ranging from M2.0 to M3.9; the most and the strongest the region has seen in 40 years.
According to data from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the town of Pozzuoli is the nearest populated area closest to the epicenter of the earthquake swarm, prompting officials to close schools there until further notice.
Many years ago, I had the opportunity to go to the town of Pozzuoli, and I also had the opportunity to visit the ruins of Pompeii.
We have seen cataclysmic disasters in this region before, and I will be carefully monitoring future developments.
Meanwhile, Santorini has recently been shaken by more than 20,000 earthquakes…
Professor Efthymios Lekkas, head of the state-run Earthquake Planning and Protection Organization, warned on Sunday that seismic activity on Santorini is expected to continue for an extended period.
“It will be a prolonged sequence lasting several weeks, possibly even a few months. This type of seismic activity does not subside easily,” he stated in an interview with public broadcaster ERTNews.
Lekkas further explained that the total number of tremors has already exceeded 20,000 earthquakes.
We haven’t seen this much shaking in southern Europe in a long, long time.
Is all of this shaking leading up to something really big?
Lastly, I can’t do an article like this and leave Mount Fuji out.
It is relatively quiet for now, but the last time it erupted it left a thick layer of ash in central Tokyo…
The 3,776-meter Mt. Fuji last erupted in 1707. At the time, eruptions continued for 16 days, leaving a layer of volcanic ash about 4 cm thick in locations in current-day central Tokyo, according to historical records.
The next time Mount Fuji erupts, Tokyo will not be so fortunate.
As I have detailed in my books, we live at a time when seismic activity is on the rise.
What we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
There will be one apocalyptic event after another during the years ahead, and I hope that you are preparing accordingly.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Bypass Big Tech Censors
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.