Hurricane Iris (1995) the northwest, the hurricane moved over Montserrat, causing additional problems on the island just weeks after the Soufrière Hills volcano began erupting. Officials on the island closed the primary airport due to the storm, which prevented residents from evacuating from the island from the volcano threat. Further north, Iris dropped of rain on Antigua, which destroyed banana trees and caused flooding in low-lying areas. Due to uncertainties in Iris' track, the government of Bermuda issued a tropical storm watch on September 1. This was downgraded on September 3 after the hurricane bypassed the island. Later, after Iris became extratropical, the
Barren Island (Andaman Islands) National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) spotted the volcano erupting on 23 January 2017. Abhay Mudholkar, the head of the team, said, "The volcano is erupting in small episodes of about five to ten minutes. During the day, only ash clouds were observed. However, after sundown, red lava fountains were spewing from the crater into the atmosphere and hot lava flowed streaming down its slopes." Based on Ar-Ar dating of samples from Barren Island it is now established that the oldest subaerial lava flows of the volcano are 1.6 million years old and the volcano is located on an oceanic crust