Eyjafjallajokull...try saying that 3 times fast!

What a great shot. The folks at NASA are incredible for making pictures like this available on their website. This is a shot taken early this morning by NASA's Terra Satellite. What I've circled there is a the giant ash plume that has closed many of Europe's airports and left thousands stranded. What a great shot! Oh...and what a bad situation. So how does a volcano in Iceland affect air travel over 1500 km's away? Well let's look at the next slide I've put together.

That ash cloud has risen to over 55,000 feet in height. 55,000 feet! That happens to be where the Jet Stream is also located. The Jet Stream is a narrow ribbon of fast, upper level winds that circle the globe and divide the cold polar air to the north from the relatively warmer air to the south. These winds flow generally from west to east but tend to meander much like a river. The picture above shows the latest path of the "Jet" over Iceland and you can see just how far it is pushing that ash cloud south and east. This has brought ash as far east as continental Europe!

So why the cancellations? Well, if a plane were to fly into that ash cloud it may lose power. An ash plume is made up ash, glass and tiny bits of rock. The glass is capable of hurting a plane's electronics and the rocks can damage its turbines. Those tiny bits of rock can heat up and stick to the engine's components resulting in a loss of power. Not to mention a lack of visibility for the pilot and harmful gases could be pumped into the cabin. As for how long this problem may persist...this could be a frequent issue. The Eyjafjallajokull Volcano has been very active as of late and shows no signs of calming down. Iceland sits right over a divergent plate boundary where two tectonic plates are in a constant state of seperation allowing magma and volcanic gas to reach the surface. Every now and then, as pressure from below builds, this volcano literally "burps" spewing ash high into the atmosphere. Let's hope for those stranded passengers that this ash clears in the next day or so but another plume may not be far behind.

The Return of Winter?

If you needed another reason to be happy about living here in the Kawarthas just look at that pic above. That’s a shot of my latest weather map and that powerful storm hammering the prairies. Calgary is now recovering from that system and is warming up from yesterday’s daytime high of around the freezing mark. After hammering Calgary the snow line moved just a little to the east and now Lethbridge is dealing with a major winter storm. To the west of that low pressure center are strong northerly winds (in excess of 90km) and heavy, wet snow. This deadly combination has resulted in both school and road closures and power out ages across the city of Lethbridge. Even as I write this blog blizzard and winter storm warnings are still in effect for many communities across the southern prairies and that same system is on its way here…sort of.

I’ve had a few calls today from concerned viewers asking me what we can expect as that system pushes east. Luckily we dodge a bullet. Looking at the pic above you can see that that ridge of high pressure over Ontario that is blocking this storm’s track. As that western trough in the jet stream is trying to “dig” east it is being slowed by that “blocking high.” When a low is stalled we start to see an occlusion form as the cold air literally “catches up” to the warm air in advance of the low. That funny pink front you see is called an “occluded front” and it’s like a zipper being done up between the cold and warm front. Cold air starts to surround the low at the surface forcing the warm aloft and this weakens the storm. In short, this means that by the time this system crosses north of our region it will be a much weaker storm. For Peterborough we can expect showers (starting as early as tomorrow afternoon) with rain late Friday into Saturday. Communities to the north (Haliburton and Bancroft) may experience some thunderstorm activity…but no snow. So let’s be happy with the rainy forecast to round out the week. The rain is much needed and I’ll take showers over 20cm of wet snow any day.

Ola!

Ola! I'm back from sunny Cuba! I apologize for the lack of blog activity for the last week...but internet access is hard to come by in Cuba. Rum Punch, on the other hand, is not hard to come by. In the pic above is our group of intrepid viewers who made the treck to the Play Pasquero 5 Star Resort in Holguin Cuba...and check out the beach!

The picture actually does the beach no justice. That water looks even better in person. The beach was amazing and boasted an incredible coral reef (great for snorkeling) with a variety of fish and sea life. I actually saw a Barracuda just 20 feet from shore!


If salt water is not your thing the pool is apparently the largest in Cuba and this pic my wife Kate snapped shows less than half of it...awesome.

Here's another shot of the beach. Our CHEX TV group enjoyed a catered beach party with that amazing view and witnessed one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen. Getting away from the beach was tough but I did manage to make a trip into a small Cuban village as well as a snorkeling trip on a huge catamaran. The sea life on that trip was unbelievable and as for the trip into town...let's just say the Cuban people are amazing. I think the biggest thing our group brought back to Canada was our impression of the people of this small Caribbean nation. Cuba is a poor country but the people are the among the happiest and the nicest I have ever met. This may have been my first trip to Cuba but it will not be my last and I have to send out a big thank you to Mary and the staff at Marlin Travel Peterborough for this amazing opportunity.