Data on the 1902 Plinian eruption of Santa María volcano, Guatemala

The study of historic volcanic eruptions is often complicated by the lack of recorded primary data and observations of such events. In the case of large-magnitude historic eruptions, these types of data are important to better understand not only the physical nature of these rare events but also the volcanic and social impacts that follow. In this paper, we compile contemporary data on the Santa María Plinian eruption of 1902, in Guatemala. The data supplement those presented in the original research article [1] but individually provide an interesting and useful compilation of eyewitness testimonies, scientific studies and newspaper reports. We identify key contemporary sources containing quantitative data as well as various qualitative reports that we convert to quantitative measurements through a simple classification scheme. We also compile wind reanalysis data from the time of the eruption to display wind direction and speed with height. Both the data and the description of the methods of data analysis can aid future studies of qualitative (historic, eyewitness) to quantitative data conversion, as well as studies investigating this important eruption.