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Explosive volcanic eruptions propel high-velocity turbulent jets into the atmosphere and are one of the most powerful and dangerous turbulent flows on Earth. Such eruptions are particularly difficult to predict due to their unusual dynamics that allow the jet to form a high buoyant Plinian plume or dense pyroclastic flows when the column collapses. A major goal of physical volcanology has been to predict quantitatively the limit between the flow regimes, as a function of exit conditions specified at the vent, which requires a physical model constrained by geologic field data. A first generation of quasi-analytic models, developed over 20–30 years although qualitatively successful, has failed to achieve this goal, because they overestimate by more than one order of magnitude the mass flux at the transition. There has been no consensus on whether this mostly reflects poor knowledge of geologic parameters or …