1. eruptions
  2. Soufriere Hills causing flight cancellations on Puerto Rico

Soufriere Hills causing flight cancellations on Puerto Rico

By eklemetti on December 29, 2009.


Soufriere Hills on Montserrat in an undated image from the Royal Navy.

Just wanted to pass along this bit of news: the current eruptions at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat are prompting cancellations of over 40 flights today from Puerto Rico. This is due to the ash plumes from the current dome eruptions - the NASA Earth Observatory posted images of the recent activity showing the large, grey plume drifting to the west. What is impressive is that Puerto Rico is over 250 miles / 400 km to the west of Montserrat, so this ash must be significant enough to prompt these flight cancellations. The ash appears to be causing poor visibility at 10,000 feet / 3 km - along with being a threat to cause engine failure. Officials from Puerto Rico say regular flights will likely return tomorrow.

Tags
ash plumes
aviation
mitigation
Montserrat
Soufriere Hills
volcanic hazards
volcano monitoring

More like this

Monday Musings: Ash from Soufriere Hills and lingering danger at Mayon
A couple bits of news: The ash plume from the February 11, 2010 eruption of Soufriere Hills taken by theAqua MODIS camera. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. Flights have been disrupted in the West Indies since last week with the large dome-collapse eruptions of Soufriere Hills on…
Soufriere Hills continues having a big winter
A pyroclastic flow from the February 5 vulcanian eruption of Soufriere Hills. Image courtesy of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO). UPDATE: See some amazing images of the recent eruptive activity over on Stromboli Online. {Hat tip to the Volcanism Blog via Eruptions reader CK.} One event…
A pile of new volcano images
Sometimes it is hard to keep up with the mountain of remote sensing (or not so remote) images that get released on the internet. Over the last few days, the NASA Earth Observatory has released a bunch of images/videos of current eruptions, so I thought I'd round them all up here for you to peruse…
Friday Flotsam: Soufriere Hills' big bang and submarine volcanism from space
Two impressive eruptions going on right now: Soufriere Hills erupting on February 11, 2010. Image courtesy of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory. Soufriere Hills just keeps on raising the bar during its new eruptive period. The volcano on Montserrat in the West Indies produced a 15 km / ~45 000…

Looks like Montserrat and Redoubt are really turning up the heat on the Pliny award!!!

By stephen tierney (not verified) on 30 Dec 2009 #permalink

Thomas: I've seen that video before, it's Santa Maria (Santiaguito -sp?) in Guatemala

I've got a general question there is in Bolivia at 67 degrees west and 20 degrees south a huge salt flat at 12,000 feet. It is something like 67 by 87 miles in size. Now there seem to be a number of volcanoes in the area. Could this be an ancient caldera that got covered with salt? Have there been any geological examinations that can prove/disprove this notion? I am just considering this because 12,000 feet is a rather high altitude to have such a flat expanse - or am I wrong? Are there many or any other high non-volcanic plateaus like this around the world?

By Thomas Donlon (not verified) on 30 Dec 2009 #permalink

Hey I was boen on this island, seems like the ash is getting stronger

By Nichelle Ryan (not verified) on 31 Dec 2009 #permalink

I recently bought this suped-up gaming laptop, with over 2 GB of memory and it is so AWESOME! I can play Mass Effect 2, the new Need For Speed, and Bloons TD 3 and with no lagg at all. I purchased mine from HP, all for like $500 bucks all in... pretty good deal in my opinion.