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[rubywillow]

Seems this last year has brought more than it's share of historic weather events. Here's the latest. Sorry for all of you affected, and hope it clears up soon.

Iceland's volcanic ash halts flights across Europe
By ROBERT BARR and JILL LAWLESS Associated Press Writers The Associated Press
Thursday, April 15, 2010 5:35 AM EDT

LONDON (AP) ? Ash from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across a wide swathe of Europe on Thursday, grounding planes on a scale not seen since the 9/11 terror attacks. Thousands of flights were canceled, tens of thousands of passengers were stranded and officials said it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again.

In a sobering comment, one scientist in Iceland said the ejection of volcanic ash ? and therefore disruptions in air travel ? could continue for days or even weeks.

Authorities stopped all flights over Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries. The shutdown closed London's five major airports including Heathrow, Europe's busiest, a major trans-Atlantic hub that handles over 1,200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day.

With the cloud drifting south and east across Britain, the country's air traffic service banned all non-emergency flights until at least 7 a.m. (0600 GMT, 2 a.m. EDT) Friday.

Irish authorities closed their air space for at least eight hours, and aviation authorities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland took similar precautions.

Airport shutdowns and flight cancellations spread across Europe ? to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland ? as well as around the world.

The volcano's smoke and ash poses a threat to aircraft because it can affect visibility, and microscopic debris can get sucked into airplane engines and can cause them to shut down. Health officials said the plume, which rose to between 20,000 feet and 36,000 feet (6,000 meters and 11,000 meters), posed no threat to human health.

Airlines in the United States were canceling some flights to Europe and delaying others.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said her agency was working with airlines to try to reroute some flights around the ash cloud, which lies above the Atlantic Ocean close to the flight paths for most routes from the U.S. east coast to Europe.

[DeeBee]

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This is bizaare! I just can't believe it!

My SIL and family were supposed to fly out from Scottland this afternoon for a surprise family get together for my FIL's 60th -- we don't know when they'll be able to fly now but more than likely will miss the whole affair!!
I feel terrible for them, they've been planning this for over a year now.

[Cinders]

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Deebs,

I am so sorry. That is very sad.

Hopefully, some sort of reroute will occur and they can make it.

Love,
Cindi

[rubywillow]

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I feel so bad for all those stranded passengers. Who knows when it will be over, and it's expensive to be stuck!

[Marshy]

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One of my colleagues is due back at work from holiday tomorrow. He just called to say he's stranded in Hong Kong and won't be in. Didn't sound too upset. :H

[mario]

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I hope to fly out wednesday to portugal, hope its moved on from Ireland by then,;;dont mind getting stuck in portugal....


sorry for your troubles deebees..

[Chillgirl]

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Mario
We have a major thunder & lightning storm going on right now! Dont forget to pack your wellies :H

[mario]

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chillgirl;837837 wrote: Mario
We have a major thunder & lightning storm going on right now! Dont forget to pack your wellies :H

:boohoo:whats the forcast,please tell me its sunny

[Cinders]

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Mario,

Try this:

weather.com

If you don't like that website:

World Weather Information Service - Official Observations. Official Forecasts.

I am JEALOUS!! Portugal!!!

I get to go to southern Alabama for vacation. :H:H

Here in the southern USA, we call it the "Redneck Riviera."

Cindi

[DeeBee]

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Oh I feel gutted for my SIL.
It looks like she'll be refunded and then can re-book her ticket a WEEK later.

[rubywillow]

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SO sorry, Deebs. I know it well, Cindi. Brother owns a 'villa' there (a tiny lot with a camper w/room added!) :H

[rubywillow]

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LONDON (AP) — Volcanic ash blanketed parts of rural Iceland on Friday and left a widening arc of grounded aircraft across Europe, as thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac to avoid the hazardous cloud.

Eurocontrol, the European air traffic agency, said the flight disruptions that upended travel in Europe and reverberated throughout the world Thursday were even worse on Friday. Half a dozen European nations have closed their airspaces, the cloud was drifting east, about 60 percent of European flights were not operating and delays will continue into Saturday, it said.

"We expect around 11,000 flights to take place today in European airspace. On a normal day, we would expect 28,000," said Kyla Evans, a spokeswoman for Eurocontrol. "The cloud of volcanic ash is continuing to move east and southeast."

Ice chunks the size of houses tumbled down from a volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) glacier Thursday, as hot gases melted the ice. The volcano began erupting Wednesday for the second time in less than a month.

As torrents of water roared down the steep slopes of the volcano, about 40 people nearby were evacuated because of flash flooding. More floods from melting waters are expected as long as the volcano keeps erupting, said Rognvaldur Olafsson of the Civil Protection Department.

The ash cloud, drifting between 20,000 to 30,000 feet (6,000 to 9,000 meters) high and invisible from the ground, left tens of thousands of travelers stranded around the globe and blocked the main air flight path between the U.S. east coast and Europe.

Trains and hotels in key European cities were packed as people scrambled to make alternate travel plans.

Fearing that microscopic particles of highly abrasive ash could endanger passengers by causing aircraft engines to fail, authorities shut down air space over Britain, Ireland, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Belgium. That halted flights at Europe's two busiest airports — Heathrow in London and Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris — as well as dozens of other airports, 25 in France alone.

As the cloud moved east, flights were halted Friday at Frankfurt airport, Europe's third-busiest terminal, and at 10 other German airports including Duesseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne. No flights were allowed at the Ramstein Air Base, a key U.S. military hub in southwestern Germany.

No more than 120 trans-Atlantic flights reached European airports Friday morning, compared to 300 on a normal day, said Eurocontrol's Evans. About 60 flights between Asia and Europe were canceled Friday, stranding several thousand passengers.

As the cloud moved to the south and east, some European countries reported a slight easing of conditions. The French Civil Aviation said it will allow some planes to land at the three Paris airports during a four-hour window starting at noon Friday.

Sweden and Norway declared skies in the far north to be safe again for travel even as flights in both capitals — Stockholm and Oslo — were still on a lockdown. Aviation authorities in Ireland reopened airports in Dublin and Cork and lifted most restrictions on the country's airspace.

Poland expanded its no-fly zone Friday to most of the country, excluding the southern cities of Krakow and Rzeszow. Anxious Polish officials worried that the ash cloud could threaten the arrival of many world leaders for Sunday's state funeral of President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, in the southern city of Krakow.

Among those coming are President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Officials have said a postponement of the funeral would be an absolute last resort.

The White House says Obama still planned to fly to Poland on Saturday for the funeral.

NATS, the private company which controls British air space, said the air over England would remain closed at least until 1 a.m. Saturday (0000 GMT) but that some international flights might be allowed into Northern Ireland and western Scotland later in the day.

One Toronto-bound flight departed from Glasgow in Scotland on Friday morning and three flights landed.

Professor Jon Davidson of the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University in England said the dispersal of the cloud is dependent on the weather. The cloud can be blown elsewhere, the ash could all fall to Earth, or the ash particles spread and become diluted, no longer posing a threat to aircraft, he said.

Britain's Meteorological Office said the wind was expected to blow form the north, which would bring further ash across parts of Britain. Small amounts of ash settled in northern Scotland and Norway, but officials said there was little risk to health.

"It's not toxic or poisonous, it's not radioactive ... and shouldn't pose any danger to general health," Scottish first minister Alex Salmond told the BBC.

Officials at the World Health Organization in Geneva disagreed, saying Europeans should try to stay indoors if ash from Iceland's volcano starts raining down from the sky.

WHO spokesman David Epstein says the agency doesn't know the exact health risks from the ash cloud. However, he said the ash is potentially dangerous if it starts to "settle" on the earth because inhaling the particles can cause respiratory problems, especially for those suffering from asthma and respiratory diseases.

Iceland, a nation of 320,000 people, sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge, and has a history of devastating eruptions.

Explosive volcanic eruptions inject large amounts of highly abrasive ash — essentially very small rock fragments — into the upper atmosphere, the cruising altitude of most jet airliners. It can cause significant damage to both airframes and engines.

The U.S. Geological Survey said about 100 aircraft have run into volcanic ash from 1983 to 2000. In some cases engines shut down briefly after sucking in volcanic debris, but there have been no fatal incidents. Still, authorities are very wary, because ash cannot be detected by a plane's normal weather radar.

In 1989, a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 flew into an ash cloud from Alaska's Redoubt volcano and lost all power, dropping from 25,000 feet to 12,000 feet (7,500 meters to 3,600) before the crew could get the engines restarted. The plane landed safely.

In another incident in the 1980s, a British Airways 747 flew into a dust cloud and the grit sandblasted the windshield. The pilot had to stand and look out a side window to land safely.

[rubywillow]

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BRUSSELS (AP) — European officials carved up the sky Monday, creating three zones to more quickly break the flight deadlock caused by volcanic ash flowing from Iceland over Europe. Many more flights will be able to take off on Tuesday, the bloc said.

European countries can resume airline traffic in designated "caution zones" where the threat of ash is considered less dangerous, French officials said after a meeting of the bloc's 27 transport ministers.

Under the accord, one area — defined by the European air traffic control agency Eurocontrol — will remain entirely off limits to flights. Another area will be open to all flights and a third area will be a caution zone in which some flights will be allowed.

Jean-Louis Borloo, the No. 2 French Cabinet official, said flights in the caution zone will be "very secure" with many tests to make sure jet engines are not damaged by ash.

EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said after a videoconference with EU transport ministers and industry officials that "the decision increases air space available to air traffic. This is the final outcome."

The EU said as of Tuesday morning "we should see more planes starting to fly."

Earlier, Germany's aviation authority granted Lufthansa an exemption to fly 50 long-haul planes carrying 15,000 passengers back home at a very low altitude and the British government sent Royal Navy warships to rescue those marooned across the Channel by flight cancelations.

Britain chimed in with more good news, saying flight restrictions over Scottish airspace will be lifted Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. (0600 GMT, 2 a.m. EDT) and other British airports could reopen later that day as well.

As airline losses spiraled over $1 billion, the aviation industry blasted European officials, claiming there was "no coordination and no leadership" in the crisis that shut down most European airports for a fifth day.

Eurocontrol, the air traffic agency in Brussels, said less than one-third of flights in Europe were taking off Monday — between 8,000 and 9,000 of the continent's 28,000 scheduled flights. Airports in southern Europe were open, however, and Spain offered to become an emergency hub for the whole continent.

Lufthansa spokesman Jan Baerwald said the planes, scattered around the world, would start getting ready "right now." The first flights will be from the Far East, with others following from Africa and North America

The planes will fly to Frankfurt, Munich and Duesseldorf under visual flight rules, he said, noting that air traffic control is still keeping its restrictions on German airspace.

"We have an exception that allows us to fly so-called visual flight rules," he said.

Visual flight rules allow a pilot to fly the airplane without reference to instruments, if weather conditions are good enough so the pilot can see landmarks and avoid any other aircraft. Those flights need to be under 18,000 feet, lower than usual altitude for commercial traffic.

In Iceland, meteorologists said eruptions from the volcano were weakening and the ash was no longer rising to a height where it would endanger large commercial aircraft. British Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis confirmed there was been a "dramatic reduction in volcanic activity."

Video still showed smoke billowing into the air from the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers have been stranded around the world since the volcano in southern Iceland begun erupting Wednesday for the second time in a month. Passengers in Asia, frustrated over sleeping on airport floors for days and running out of money, staged protests at airport counters.

European airlines are seeking financial compensation for a crisis that is costing the industry at least $200 million a day — and by some industry estimates up to $300 million a day. The British Airways chief said test flights had proven that flying was safe.

Several airlines have run flights over the last few days, and none reported problems or damage, prompting some airline officials to question whether governments had overreacted to concerns that the microscopic particles of ash could shut down jet engines.

"It's embarrassing, and a European mess," said Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of the International Air Transport Association. "It took five days to organize a conference call with the ministers of transport and we are losing $200 million per day (and) 750,000 passengers are stranded all over. Does it make sense?"