Within hours of posting about the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Grimsvötn, I found out that helicopter footage of the plume (with tons of lightning) has been posted on Vimeo by Jon Gustafsson:
[embed width="610"]http://vimeo.com/24084400[/embed]
Lightning is common in volcanic plumes, but this one produced quite a bit more than usual. The footage is striking. Ha ha. Also, NASA released a beautiful image of the plume
as seen by the Earth-observing Terra satellite:
[Click to hephaestenate.] Note the scale; the ash column is over 20 km (12 miles) across. I said in the post earlier it reached 11 km in height; however the NASA news release states that it reached over 20 km high! There is some indication the ash may be a threat to air travel in the UK, too. That's a bummer; Eyjafjalajökull disrupted air travel for weeks. Let's hope this one subsides sooner. Video from Jon Gustafsson on Vimeo; Terra image from Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
