View of the Iceland ash cloud taken Saturday midday by NASA Terra Satellite. Click image for full res.

The winds aloft are blowing the ash mainly over the Atlantic today.

Wind flow at around 18,000 feet (500hpk) for Midnight Sunday. NOAA Numerical Weather model (GFS). (The red and blue shading is vorticity-weather geek stuff, just look at the black lines and my arrow toward the UK.)

Some of it is rotating around an upper level low and causing problems in Spain. The wind flow in the mid levels of the atmosphere will blow it more toward the UK and Europe starting late Sunday.  Heathrow and Gatwick could very well be affected.

The ash is up to around 5,000 meters today. Transatlantic flights can get above it. If it gets higher (above 30,000 feet), then more widespread disruptions are likely.

The same satellite also passed over the Gulf just before Noon. It got a great shot of the oil.

See below.

Oil slick is visible at the middle bottom of the pic. Click image for full resolution.

Late word tonight is that the attempt to put a cover over it has failed. Ice is forming in it.

This is probably from the sudden drop in pressure as the oil escapes the sea bed. The tremendous pressure differences between the sub surface and the sea bed are likely involved. The same differences in pressure from the sea floor to the surface will also make this EXTREMELY difficult.

You can demonstrate this to yourself by rapidly letting the air out of your car tires while holding onto the valve. Feel how cold it gets??

Dan

NASA MODIS Satellite pass over the Iceland Volcano today. Huge ash cloud visible but it is not being blown toward Europe (as of now at least). Click image for much higher resolution.

The upper level winds are not blowing the ash toward the UK today and that is very good news. If they were, there would be widespread cancellations of flights. The cloud is especially thick.

One way to see the ash is to use a little trick. By looking at the brightness (temp.) difference between two channels on the image, the ash shows up very well. This is an animated gif, and will take awhile to load.

The good news is that late today the eruption has become much quieter and the ash is not as high as earlier.

Geological experts in Iceland are reporting that there are no signs the eruption will end anytime soon.

Sensors on most of the weather satellites are not really designed to see the ash. There has been a lot of work recently to use the available sensors to see as much as possible. The best way to see it is to use LIDAR. This is a form of radar using lasers. The UK Met office has had considerable luck using this from the ground to look at the ash cloud over the UK.

This event and the oil slick in the Gulf highlight the incredible usefulness of using remote sensing instruments in orbit. They pay for themselves many times over. The USA and Europe have fallen behind in putting these sensors on orbital platforms.

The technology is there, we just need to use it.

Here below is the latest view of the oil slick in the Gulf. Keep in mind you are only seeing the heaviest patch of oil. It is much more widespread than it appears.

True colour image from NASA's Aqua satellite. The thickest oil shows up well. It now appears the oil slick has moved west of the mouth of the Mississippi. Click image for much bigger view.

The movement of both the ash and the oil are very dependent on the atmospheric winds. The winds may start blowing the ash back toward Europe next week. The oil is much more difficult to predict…

Dan

Image from NASA Modis Satellite 2 pm UK time. The thinning ash cloud is being absorbeb by a low pressure SE of Iceland.

Great news for air travelers this evening. The eruption in Iceland is now putting out much less ash and the cloud is much lower. The low level ash is not headed toward the UK as the image above shows.

The snow-cap that covered the volcano has melted away. This has reduced the steam/ash combination that was climbing to over 3,000 meters.

Even more good news tonight. The upper level and lower level winds will push any new ash cloud to the North of the UK and France. It looks likely that airports will be opening across Western Europe tomorrow and this is now being confirmed by the BBC.

Click image for the full resolution! The ash layer is at 10-16,000 feet now instead of the higher altitudes over the weekend. From NASA. This new cloud is headed toward the UK.

There is actually some good news tonight. The ash cloud over Europe has diminished and begun to sink south of Paris and London. Here is the outlook for tomorrow regarding the no go areas.

Ash extent forecast for Tuesday 7 am London time. From UK Met Office.

Most of England is in the clear by 1 PM! From UK Met Office.

Late word tonight that the eruption has picked back up. The current wind flow will steer the new ash cloud toward the UK, Central England in particular. So the openings of the airports tomorrow may be brief. See below.

The ash will be at a lower altitude but it may become more dense and put an end to the planned reopening of the airspace over the UK tomorrow. Further east there is more hope for flights.

Ash cloud approaching 30,000 feet over Iceland. Courtesy Iceland Met Office.

The UK has now grounded aircraft through 1AM GMT Sunday. The ash cloud has gotten worse and there is a new plume headed toward Europe as the image above indicates. Meteorologists from the Iceland Met Office flew o Friday near the volcano to check the height of the ash cloud and reported it is nearly 30,000 feet (10,000 meters).

The upper level winds at this level will steer the ash toward NW and Central Europe. The conditions may very well worsen over the weekend.

Why?

Look at the winds forecasted for Sunday at 34,000 feet from the UK Met Office numerical weather prediction model:

Winds at flight level 34,000 feet from UKMet Model. Image courtesy UK Met Office and 21st Weather Squadron USAF

A “Eureka Alert from SCIENCE late Friday has some interesting and alarming news:

Public release date: 16-Apr-2010
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Contact: Jay Miller
miller@iodp.tamu.edu
979-845-5740
Texas A&M University

Icelandic volcanoes can be unpredictable and dangerous, say Texas A&M prof

If history is any indication, the erupting volcano in Iceland and its immense ash plume could intensify, says a Texas A&M University researcher who has explored Icelandic volcanoes for the past 25 years.

Jay Miller, a research scientist in the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program who has made numerous trips to the region and studied there under a Fulbright grant, says the ash produced from Icelandic volcanoes can be a real killer, which is why hundreds of flights from Europe have been cancelled for fear of engine trouble.

“What happens is that the magma from the volcano is around 1,200 degrees and it hits the water there, which is near freezing,” he explains. “What is produced is a fine ash that actually has small pieces of glass in it, and it can very easily clog up a jet engine. If you were to inhale that ash, it would literally tear up your lungs.”

Miller says most volcanoes in Iceland erupt only about every five years on average and are relatively mild, but history is repeating itself. Extremely large eruptions occurred there in 934 A.D. and again in 1783 that covered Europe with ash much like today.

“Ben Franklin was ambassador to France in 1783 and he personally witnessed the large ash clouds over Europe, and he later wrote that it was a year in which there was no summer,” Miller adds. “The big question now is, what happens next? It’s very possible this eruption could last for quite some time, but no one knows for sure. Volcanoes in that part of the world are very hard to predict.”

—–

Here below is the latest ash coverage forecast from the UK Met Office:

Ash cloud from UK Met Office

More soon,

Dan