Spennandi! (exciting!)

This is one of the best videos I have seen, taken yesterday, March 24, 2010. There does not appear to be any imminent danger of the volcano spreading into Eyafjallajökull and thereby causing massive flooding. We are on the hills above the floodplain so it is unlikely that our house would be swept away in a flood. However, we would be evaucated right away if there was even a chance of flooding and would not be watching it from our windows!

Our house stands about 15 miles from the eruption and so we are not in any danger whatsoever from the lava flow. There is in fact no one living in the immediate area of the volcano,but there are a few farms within a certain radius of it and they are the ones who were not able to return home until Monday.

I would like to underscore the fact that the FOX news reports on the volcano with their interview with a volcanologist was entirely misleading and not to be trusted. BBC and Reuters have, by contrast, been very accurate and free of hype. OK, well one BBC report did quote a certain teacher who lives near us as saying that there was so much ash that they couldn't open their car door, and I hope to be able to get to the bottom of that one.

They estimate that there are 30 million cubic metres of magma under Eyafjallajðkull which is what is feeding the Fimmvörðuháls eruption. If the fissure widens into the glacier then that is where is could start getting dangerous, so everyone is keeping a close eye on it.

Here is a link to mila.is http://mila.is/um-milu/vefmyndavelar/eyjafjallajokull-fra-thorolfsfelli/ which has set up a live webcam of the eruption, at a very safe distance. It should be very beautiful to watch this coming Saturday as the weather should be sunny and clear. If you tune in around 8:30 PM Iceland time, as the sun sets it could be quite a beautiful view of the eruption around that time.