Friday 16 April 2010

Volcanic Dust Shuts Britain

How can a volcanic eruption in Iceland possibly close down the British Isles? That was my first thought yesterday, but since then the nice scientists on the news channels have explained about wind flows and mineral particles and what volcanic dust can do if it is sucked up into a plane's engine. A friend of mine is stranded on the Greek Island of Crete, her family were on a cruise around Greece and Egypt and they got off their ship yesterday to the news that England was a 'no fly' zone. She text me to see if it were a joke or really happening. It does sound a bit far fetched if you don't have the opportunity to see it on TV or Internet!
This kind of thing makes you realise how dependant we have all become on aircraft. I have another friend who is moving overseas who had gone on ahead of his wife to get their new home sorted - she was due to join him yesterday - no chance. As an island nation we have few other options - although the channel tunnel has made a huge difference to getting over to Europe now, but I suspect that Eurostar quickly became oversubscribed yesterday.
When my husband went to go to work this morning, the car had a very fine layer of some kind of dust over it but that is the only sign that there is anything untoward going on. We have blue skies and bright sunshine, how can we possibly be surrounded by volcanic dust?!
So this is an unusual subject for a post but it's such an exceptional situation I thought I should blog it for future reference.
Meanwhile, Rinda has posted her tutorial for the altered house, no prizes for guessing how I will be spending my day today ;-)

7 comments:

Sian said...

It's a good idea to blog this! We have a clear sky here but it didn't stop DD asking her dad if he could get her the old gas mask out of the attic!

humel said...

We haven't noticed any sign of this, to my disappointment! I thought that being north-ish might make dusty residue or even rust-coloured clouds more likely, but no...

Scrappi Sandi said...

Isn't it amazing?!! My car had black specks all over it this morning & it is still quite cloudy here...but there is no obvious sign of what's going on all those thousands of feet up!!

If I'm organised enough to post tomorrows LO's in the evening I will!! I think I'll definitely sticking with B&W photo's as per the suggested ones...but we'll see!!

Have a great day...I am also scrapping this afternoon & have a BIA tutorial video all lined up & ready to go!! :)

Deb @ PaperTurtle said...

Wow - that's pretty crazy, huh? I have a good friend who lives on the big island of Hawaii and there is a live volcano there. They have "vog" (instead of fog) on their island and it's very common there. Who would have thought you'd experience something like that where you are!?!?

Maria Ontiveros said...

Interesting post. When DD did her earth science model this year, I was surprised to see volcanoes up by Iceland on it, and now here they are in real life! Quite an educational experience for all of us.
Rinda

Jools said...

My husband asked me earlier about this - he wasn't sure it was true either! LOL

No sign of anything here, no dust, no glorious sunset. Have had to spend today though reassuring my nervous middle child that we will NOT be affected. I don't think she believed me until I showed her the BBC news site...

Jane said...

It has been the main headline on our news here in Canada too!!! Amazing!!!