Thanks Craig. All our thoughts are with you and your family.

Something to watch: The rain is coming down hard in LA tonight, and the burn area near JPL & particularly the neighboring community of La Canada Flintridge is vulnerable to mudslides.

Some limited home evacuations in this area have begun; let's keep several UMSF members & project people who live in that area in mind.

I'm there. It's clear this morning and no major slides. Workers were all over the hills all night reinforcing, bless them -- we could see their lamps.

Vegetation is already popping up here and there from a shower last month, and this will speed it. Fingers crossed.

All...

update on my daughter.

Rachel has made remarkable progress over the last week. She is out of ICU and now in a physical therapy ward.
Aside from wanting to see her sons she is most worried about getting her voice back.

Strong young woman who may well be home for X-Mas!!!! I cannot wait to see her and her two boys together again.

Craig

That's great news Craig - what a wonderful Christmas present for her and for all of you!

Excellent! I hope her recovery is speedy!

VERY glad to hear this, Craig. This will be quite a special holiday season for your family after all!

GREAT news Craig! Here's for a fast total recovery!

Another thing, tonight I woke up with an earthquake:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/rec...us2009qhac.html
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_qhac_t.html
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyf...c/us/index.html

Whoa! 5.7--that's pretty hefty! Any damage, Rui?

Besides putting an end to a very cool dream?...Nope!

Glad to hear that!

That's an extremely disconcerting feeling, to say the least...takes you a few seconds to figure out what the hell's happening as well!

Curiously I knew immediately what was going on...we have that fear of a new 1755 imprinted on our collective minds...
At that hour it could have been a tragedy with everyone sleeping...

Well, with all the dark energy from all those Leonard Cohen records gathered in one spot, I'm not surprised the Earth let out a heavy, depressed sigh during the night Rui...!

That's it, then. Emptying all my books from the shelves, and boxing the fine china as I speak...

EDIT: Rui, not to make light. The 1755 quake was obviously a significant event in a great many ways.

We don't take it lightly, since little we all, somehow, expect an event like that to take place...we don't forget that we live in a risk area, nature doesn't allow it, my parents went through a big one in 1969 and I remember feeling another in 1981.
It can happen or not, we're waiting, that's all we can do...

Stu...did you saw my gift for you today?

Take care!

ustrax.... glad you faired well. Only earthquakes encountered in Akron, Ohio (my diggs) are little teeny tremors. Not sure how I would react to dancing with buildings!

Wanted to let everyone know my daughter is out of the hospital now! She gets outpatient physical therapy. She is doing fine but her vocal cords are still slack. Strong young woman is now with her boys (with a lot of TLC from her family)!

This illness hit her like a brick but she is bounding back.

Craig

That's great news, Craig, you must be so relieved. Going to be an amazing and very emotional Christmas for all of you, I'm sure.

No earthquakes here in Cumbria but a LOT of snow, a good 6, maybe 7" in the last couple of days. Of course, our gritters and salters were caught unaware so Kendal and its surroundings look like a cross between a car demolition derby and Narnia, but the thaw has set in.

Went on a photo safari yesterday and got some nice piccies. Some of these are in 3D, by the way..

http://twitpic.com/uny8z

http://twitpic.com/unyjk

http://twitpic.com/unz29

http://twitpic.com/unz7g

Thanks Stu... needless to say, my Christmas wish has already been met.

Craig

Indeed it has, Craig, and I'm very, very glad. I am especially glad that she'll be around her kids & out of the hospital; the joy of that alone will speed her recovery!


--------------------------


2010's gonna be good for you and yours, man, and I personally think really good for us all.

I wish happiness & peace for all of the UMSF family, as well as a suggestion: Just smile broadly & nod at one stranger sometime this season. They may well wonder just what the hell's wrong with you, but something pleasant will stick in their minds, and further smiles will ensue down the line. It's like a nuclear fission reaction...nothing wrong with that!

(Boy, am I shooting my evil robot persona to hell or what? Ahhh, who cares??? Happy holidays!!!)

Concepcion suddenly has a different meaning these days :S

Yep, I had 2 collegues there the day before and more near Santiago but they are all ok.

Just saw on CNN that a number (if not all) of the major airports in the UK are closed due to ash from the Icelandic eruptions. Are you guys expecting an ashfall? If so, get some surgical masks ASAP!

No, not expecting any ashfall, the ash is very high and disperse and should pass right on over us.

It is only a danger to aircraft at altitude, hence why the entire UK airspace is essentially closed today.

Perhaps we will see some interesting sunsets this evening?

Yeah, I'd expect some awesome sunsets, Spot! Hell, might affect the entire Northern Hemisphere for that matter.

Glad to hear that there won't be any ground deposition; that crap is nasty. Very abrasive, so you don't want to breathe it or even wipe it off the hood of your car. Learned the latter lesson the hard way by messing up the hood of my parent's new Ford Pinto during the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens (don't think I've been quite forgiven to this day!)

Thank you my friend.. it'll pass overhead and will fall at my place!
Seriously, let's wait a bit as "they" are talking about ash falling down

Fingers crossed these ****** clouds clear and allow me to hike up to the castle, with my new camera, and get some pretty volcanic sunset shots...

You'll probably have more than one chance. That volcano doesn't look like it's ready to shut down anytime soon. (You never know, though.)

Picture of the volcano plume. Very impressive
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery...05.1135.2km.jpg

(switch to 250m to have the BIG picture)

I'm supposed to be in Iceland in two months. I note that the last time this particuar volcan erupted, it went on for a year . . . Maybe I should reschedule.

--Greg

The lack of contrails overhead is quite striking. And no aircraft noise, either

Grrr.... we've had days and days of clear / pretty clear evening skies, and now, of course, with a possible volcanic sunset to enjoy, the cloud is as thick as Ready Brek! Curses! My plan to trek up to the castle and photograph the sunset with my new camera, whilst listening to tonight's Big TV Event, before heading back down into Kendal to attend the "Pie and peas supper" following Stella's drama group's 2nd night performance of G&S's "The Sorcerer" looks like being cruelly thwarted...

I have the chance of having planned to get back to Italy for the end of next week, not this one!!

A rather attractive image of the Eyjafjallajoekull ash plume courtesy of NEODASS/U. Dundee/NASA

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/8623301.stm

I'm in contact with guys located at the North of France and they are both seeing ashfall ! It's not heavy, very light and soft, but they can see it. And they said that the ambiant is very special, with a strange "cold ash" smell.

Sky cleared at 8.30pm! Raced to the castle, and I think... maybe... perhaps... the first photo in this blog post here shows a hint of volcanic colouration in the sunset...?

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/04/1...nings-observing

Even if it doesn't, it was a fantastic evening...!

Think you did get a hint of volcanic effects there, Stu; very nice pics! From what I remember after St. Helens, sunsets were generally redder & lasted longer due to more high-alt backscatter after the Sun went below the local horizon; never saw anything really more dramatic than that.

>>I'm supposed to be in Iceland in two months. * * * Maybe I should reschedule.

And miss the chance to visit an active volcano? If you're taking a tour with geologist guides, I would hope that they would be able to improvise something memorable. Although I suppose not all active volcanoes are suitable for tourists ...

TTT (edit: jealous of your trip whenever you take it)

...at least there were some advantages of this ash cloud...

WOW... more than a "hint" in those shots, remcook!

Confirm : same color as seen in the right pic yesterday evening in Paris. Now CDG Airport closed as well...

At this time it's impossible to tell what the sitation is going to be in two months but the amount of ash usually gets less as time passes. The really bad thing now is that the wind direction is extremely unfavourable for aviation - it probably couldn't have been worse. The eruption itself isn't all that big even though the effects are great due to its location (aviation and the evacuation of large areas because it's subglacial and therefore causes floods).

It's no longer overcast around the eruption site; the plume is now visible from the ground. This is the plume a few minutes ago. This is from a webcamera located approximately 35 kilometers from the eruption. Lots of ash here:

Click to view attachment

Here are some pics from this evening - North Cambridgeshire, not sure if they are regular clouds or not, the sky was totaly cloud free apart from these. May send them to spaceweather.com and see what they asy.

Whoa, Bjorn! That thing's just churning away. Do you know if it's had any further explosive eruptions that could have propelled more material into the upper atmosphere?

There are constant explosions that happen when the hot magma melts the ice.

(yawning)

Got up at 5am this morning, hoping to see a blazing, glorious, magnificent sunrise, all marmalade orange and violent purple and gold... nothing. Well, nothing unusual. The Sun did rise, which is always a good thing, but it was just a normal sunrise, nothing spectacular. I think we're just too far west of the dust stream to be affected. Oh well, it might change.

In the meantime, I wrote something after going shopping in Carlisle yesterday...

http://astropoetry.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/new-blue

BTW: here's that webcam mentioned earlier: http://eldgos.mila.is/eyjafjallajokull-fra-thorolfsfelli

Same page, better angle:

http://eldgos.mila.is/eyjafjallajokull-fra-valahnjuk/

Wow, much better, thanks.