I've seen the "pillar of fire by night" and "column of smoke by day" around here when a big chunk of the Eastern Shore on the Delmarva Peninsula was in extreme drought and grass and brush fires raged all over the place.
Quite an interesting display. Consequently, if Thera were at all responsible for the effect seen by the Hebrews as they fled East, it must have been in the cooling effect that fostered the growth of grass in the Sinai which then burned.
That'd place Exodus at 2 or 3 years later than this event. Aftershocks could have been felt in the Nile Valley for half a decade ~
Given that a explosion that large (mushroom cloud over 30 mi high) would have had the earth ringing like a bell. I believe that the parting of the red sea would have been due to a tsunami. If this event took place 2-3 years after the volaco erupted then the claim that the parted sea was actually a bay of the med does not work. I have seen very little evedence that spreading ceters are capable of producing earthquakes large enough to generate tsunamis.
Does anyone know if there has been any seafloor mapping in the southern third of the red sea that would be able to detect landslide scars?