Volcanic eruption may cause colourful sunsets

Frank_Ryan_jr wrote:

It's noticably quiet here in Shannon.
I've become immune to the sound.
The lack of rumbles is very odd indeed!

Anyone else notice the distinct lack on contrails in the sky, the sky looks better for it.

Dave_Lillis wrote:

Anyone else notice the distinct lack on contrails in the sky, the sky looks better for it.

Agreed, now that you mention it. 2 days of clear blue skies with no clouds and no contrails...

The suns was very red on the horison yesterday evening, but I cant hand on heart say it was unusual or very red due to ash or anyting like that.
especially since the ash cloud is to the east of us.

I drove through what I thought was foggy misty kind of
smokey cloud this morning going from overcast Shannon
into Limerick and my jeep was covered in ash.
Looking back to Clare from where I am I can certianly see it.
It has mist definatly arrived so keep an eye out for sunset tonight!
Oh, and this stuff can't be healthy to be breathing I'm sure!

I thought that the Sun was very red yesterday evening.
It's not clear to me if this was influenced by the volvanic emmsions or not.

Some maps of where the emissions are trailing may be indicating that we might be experiencing something to the south and south west.

I think that the following two links are useful for no-nonesne up to date information:

www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/volcano.html

www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/europe/volcano/iceland.html

I'd be interested in others' interpretation.

Mark

Nope, your eyes weren't deceiving you! It was a sunset last night enhanced by the ash drifting across from Iceland.

I had a hard job spotting Mercury which was hidden behind a thin strip of normal cloud at first but then was trying to poke through the twilight that persisted long after sunset. It wasn't helped either by a guy in a house near where we were observing who decided to light a bonfire. Whatever he threw on it generated thick black clouds of smoke. The man-made ash cloud drove us to seek a better observing site in the end!

Anyway, I digress :laugh:

Have a look at www.spaceweather.com/sunsets/gallery_sarychevpeak_2009.htm where you will see examples of the twilight glow that is a feature of volcanic sunsets. More properly termed the Purple Glow it was quite apparent last night. Sarychev was the volcano that the ISS astronauts took the dramatic photo of as the eruption punched through to the upper atmosphere.

Click through the spaceweather galleries and you'll also see some examples too of what the ash cloud would look like as it passed over. I was heading to Michael O'Connell last year and spotted the rippled layers of ash cloud from Sarychev. Both Michael and I managed to secure photos. I have NOT seen any sign of the ash cloud layering this time round from the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland.

The previous year I noted the ash cloud from Kasatochi which had erupted in Alaska -- there were also purple glow sunsets around this time too when I was down at my folks in Tipp. Spaceweather has galleries from Kasatochi at spaceweather.com/sunsets/gallery_kasatochi_2008.htm

Besides spaceweather.com, check out the atmospheric optics blog at atmospherical.blogspot.com/

John