dumb question-will the Icelandic ash cloud migrate to the United States?

[w8liftinglady]

I have tried to do some research on it,but don't seem to be able to find anything.My mom has severe COPD,and I am curious.

[mainer]

1. Not a dumb question. But can't find the answer addressed anywhere.

We know that dust storms in Asia migrate to the US west coast. So it seems possible to me that the ash cloud (which is heading ever eastward across Eurasia) might make it here.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. It's heading east, so it probably won't make it here in any strength. But...

the ash will probably be found in slight amounts all over before it finally rains down.

[WeDidIt]

3. Yes, it will

It will be so thin as to be virtually undetectable, but bits of ash will make it to the U.S.

[Catshrink]

4. On Rachel's program last night

her guest expert said one eruption from this (?) volcano years before caused a very cold winter here for a couple of years after but this one isn't that bad.

It might have been Keith's show. I was grading tests so wasn't as focused as usual.

[Skink]

5. we get African dust all the time.

according to the weather people.

[ima_sinnic]

6. within a month, the ash cloud from Mt. St. Helens in 1980 traveled around the world

see http://www.oregongrotto.com/mtsthelens.shtml for one description of the blast. There's plenty more information available online.

[KansDem]

7. No...

The Republicans will not let it in (unless it can provide cheap labor).

[jdlh8894]

8. The OP is worried about their Mother

And You get SNARKY!! What class!eom

[KansDem]

10. Tu mir leid...

Just a little levity regarding the present stance of the GOP toward immigration.

Wasn't intended to be "SNARKY."

But, then you knew that already, didn't you. Looks like neither of our posts proved valuable...

[dtotire]

9. The usual pattern of wind flow

In the upper latitudes the wind flow at higher levels is nearly always from west to east, therefore any danger to the U.S. would be negligible. (Check out jet stream pattern on Weather-underground)

[mzteris]

11. after the Laki (Iceland) eruption 200 years ago

there were global consequences : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/15/iceland-volcano-weather-french-revolution


As far as US, saw this quote in there:

"Across the Atlantic, Benjamin Franklin wrote of "a constant fog over all Europe, and a great part of North America".

The disruption to weather patterns meant the ensuing winter was unusually harsh, with consequent spring flooding claiming more lives. In America the Mississippi reportedly froze at New Orleans."



******

During several of the summer months of the year 1783, when the effect of the sun’s rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greatest, there existed a constant fog overall all Europe and great part of North America. This fog was of a permanent nature; it was dry, and the rays of the sun seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it, as they easily do a moist fog, arising from water..."The cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained,…: or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke, long continuing to issue during the summer from Hecla in Iceland, or that other volcano…..”

Extracts from Meterological Imaginations and Conjectures, by Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., Fellow R. Soc., and Acad. Reg. Sci. Paris Soc. etc., Communicated by Dr. Percival Read December 22, 1784, to the Manchester and Liverpool Philosophical Society. Franklin was in Paris, France, in the summer of 1783 as U.S. Ambassador to France.