We are expecting the Iceland vulcano ash cloud here quite soon. I wonder what it looks like. Does it look like a high level cloud, or like fog?

Cloudless so far, and quit pleasant in northern Germany.

Andy

I am in London until Saturday having flown in from Amsterdamn last night (not often I get the right side of this sort of SNAFU with planes!)

Will monitor for solar blackspots and update the shout box in the left column if it goes all dark !

All the planes are stopped in the nrth of France (even in Paris), the sun is shinning but the fog is in high sky so planes cannot go to high and fly in security

It was bizarre Ryan air cancelled my Plumbers express to Lodz Poland but the sky was clear blue.

The volcanic ash is traveling in high altitudes exactly where the jet streams are, which are used by the airplanes.
A few hundreds of miles off the vulcan the ash is already thinly distributed. Looking up from the ground the sky may still appear blue.

What makes the ash so dangerous to aircrafts is three things:
1) the ash consists of silica particles. If they enter the turbines they will solidify to glass-like substances, choking the engine
2) being silica particles and considering the high speed of airplanes the ash acts like sand paper, eroding surfaces on the wings of the airplane which consequently suffer in their aerodynamics
3) worst of all: the ash cloud is not visible to any onboard radar technologies ...
... so the pilot will realize the ash cloud too late

Yes I know. Personally as someone who flies 2 to 4 times a week across Europe being grounded is excellent news.

Have just gone in the Mog to the garden centre for the tomatoes etc to plant out later.