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Volcano erupts in Iceland, hundreds evacuated

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Goldrusher

Member
The (majority of the) airports are now closed in:

- UK
- Ireland
- Belgium
- France
- Netherlands
- Germany
- Austria
- Switzerland
- Norway
- Denmark
- Sweden
- Finland
- Estonia
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Czech Republic
- Slovakia
- Bulgaria

Millions of people stranded all over the world.

9fmu6f.jpg
 

Ceres

Banned
My local news yesterday was promoting this story during Modern Family.

"A volcano erupts in Iceland. Flights throughout Europe disrupted. We'll tell you why."

Uh...
 

jepense

Member
Forsete said:
Yes, its pretty awesome actually. :D
Following the situation is quite like slowly reading an exciting book. Except of course, that if the disruption becomes prolonged, it royally screws some sectors of the economy.
 

cloudwalking

300chf ain't shit to me
i seriously doubt i am getting out of here by plane anytime soon. the travel agent told me that there was no chance of being able to book a ferry + train. my last resort is to try to get to london and see if a relative can come and pick me up and drive me back to switzerland (would take 20 hours total)

aghghgh
 
DrM said:
A Belfast taxi driver was asked on Thursday by a group of businessmen to drive them to London's Heathrow airport. The 400-mile trip cost the businessmen £650 but they left him a £50 tip. :lol

Slovakia also closed airspace.

That.....that might have been cheaper than airfare!


Also, how you liking that gulfstream now europe????
 

DrM

Redmond's Baby
Slovenia will be closing northern airspace at 23.00, all airspace will be closed at 6.00 tommorow.

Big ash plum forming
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
A couple of neat little animations of the dust spread so far, and a forecast going into sunday. The forecast is obviously a pure prediction, based on wind forecasts in the period...but assumes the eruption continues (or indeed, going by the colour, it assumes it intensifies which may not be the case at all):

http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/news/volcanic_ash/iceland_plume_10_5km_hires.gif

edit - also, latest VAAC forecast:

http://metoffice.com/aviation/vaac/data/VAG_1271440382.png

Not much change vs previous.
 
pestul said:

Just now? :p It has been like this for a while now. My studytrip was supposed to depart yesterday, but travel agency now says that at the earliest maybe we can depart monday morning. Yeah, I fear cancellation.

Oh, and: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/04/16/iceland-eruption-could-trigger-more/

"When the ongoing Eyjafjallajokull eruption began this week, other volcanic monitoring stations in Iceland were put on alert and worrying results started coming in from Grimsvotn under Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajokull.

Pall Einarsson, earth sciences professor at the University of Iceland said that Grimsvotn started rumbling with a series of earthquakes.

Grimsvotn is now in a similar condition to how it was in 2004, when it last erupted. Last time the Grimsvotn eruption was started by a jöklahlaup, which is when the pressure of melted water under the glacier builds up to such an extent that it lifts the entire ice cap and rushes out in a highly destructive torrent. There is every indication this will happen again within 24 months, Einarsson told Visir.is.

He said that scientists have had great success in predicting activity at Grimsvotn and that they now predict an eruption at the site within two years – although it could easily come in the next weeks or months.

We must also not forget Hekla, he added. Since settlement, Hekla has erupted roughly every ten years. She erupted in 1970, 1980, 1991 and 2000."

I'm really happy I don't live in Iceland right now.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
DrM said:
Something changed several minutes ago in eruption - no more ash in the plum, only steam.

It's apparently been mixed today, mixing between steam and ash. When I was watching it earlier it looked like there was both kinds of ejection.

Some folks are saying the plume's visible from the west of Ireland this evening. Certainly looks like it might be it, but I'm surprised its visible from this distance:

29kw706.jpg


edit - right now on my cam there's some more dark grey plumes again. I guess it's gonna fluctuate between steam and ash like this for now.
 

Cyport

Member
one thing I don't get about the live feed is it's light when it should be getting dark, darker than the video shows.
 
Was meant to fly from Malaga to Glasgow on thur, that was cancelled so rearranged to fly to Belfast tomorrow, that's now been cancelled too! Not gonna get home for weeks! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.
 

DrM

Redmond's Baby
We could see some lightning action now, another huge (biggest today) outburst of ash and nightfall arrived to Iceland
 
Journey to the Centre of the Earth is an amazing book, btw. Not stating this out of jest. It's just that I was immediately reminded of Jules Verne's marvelous work.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Please be over by the end of the next week at the latest. K thanks.

For how long could this thing last???
 

DrM

Redmond's Baby
GasProblem said:
This was that latest ashplume:
You should see the one right after nightfall - atleast 5 times bigger. A lot of orange lightning reported, cloud reached 10 km+, heaviest eruption yet.

Also very nice weather on Iceland today and Eyjafjallajökull is puffing ash
 

cloudwalking

300chf ain't shit to me
my flight got cancelled again today... so i'm waiting on hold now with the company travel agent to figure out what my options are.
 

Eric_S

Member
If this drags on it'll be interesting to see what happens to goods that benefit from air frieght, like critical spare parts and the like. I'm assuming that we'll see a very rapid maxout of unaffected airports that are within a reasonable distance by train. So airports in, say, southern Italy, Greece, Ukraine, European parts of Russia could witness a brief boom.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
The situation seems to have deteriorated due to the recent level of eruptions, which are pumping ash higher into the atmosphere and thus increasing the risk area. UK and Irish airspace have been reclosed until 7pm and 6pm at the earliest respectively.


The latest forecast from the Volcanic Ash Centre London http://metoffice.com/aviation/vaac/vaacuk_vag.html shows a deterioration in the ash coverage and risk over Ireland. The ash from the Volcano is now being emitted to a higher level and thus the area of coverage and risk to aircraft has increased. Based on the latest reports the Irish Aviation Authority has closed Irish Airspace from 0600 to 1800 hours today Saturday 17th April. No commercial passenger flights including North American traffic will operate from any Irish airport during this period. Similar types of restrictions are enforced in Northern and Central Europe as well as the UK.

Following the latest information from the MET Office, NATS advises that restrictions across UK controlled airspace have been extended until at least 1900 (UK Time) today Saturday 17 April and that restrictions to Scottish and Manchester airspace have been re-applied until the same time.

Current forecasts show that the situation is worsening throughout Saturday. We are continuing to look for windows of opportunity to handle individual flights in UK controlled airspace.

The next update will be at approximately 0900 (UK time) as planned.

These seem to be based on this VAAC forecast which showed a very dramatic enlargement of the risk area over Saturday: http://metoffice.com/aviation/vaac/data/VAG_1271463398.png

However, the very latest VAAC forecast isn't quite so terrible: http://metoffice.com/aviation/vaac/data/VAG_1271483349.png

Interesting to note what's happening to the north...it's almost like there's a new area, a new 'front' of ash growing rectangularly from the north, closing the gap with the 'old' cloud.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
UK ban extended to 1am Sunday.

23 airports in France closed til at least 7pm.

All 16 international airports in Germany closed til at least 7pm.

Ditto for Swiss and Belgian airspace.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
maaan this really is making me nervous for my flight to aussie in 2 weeks. such shitty thing to happen.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
I'm starting to look like a hobo now. I packed only one day worth of gear with me to Finland but I'll probably end up being a week at least. Will need to buy clothes, razor etc.

Luckily should be able to expense that and I'm in an awesome hotel, so besides not seeing my wife and Helsinki being boring, I'm ok.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Eurocontrol says 6000 flights will go today in Europe vs 22000 normally on a Saturday.

The AFP quotes a scientist as saying volcano activity appears to be increasing.

And the Met Office in the UK is saying there's been light ash fall in the Thames Valley. Which is sort of interesting/unexpected.
 
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