Eruption flashover lightning gallery
tb
tb
Following the old saga Odin had a lot of concubines, and may
the reason for this sparkly spectacle was a strong martial
quarrel in his residence. Who was really
starting
the
trouble, we could not find out in a distance of 15 km. Or
may it was Thor, who throw the thunderbolt which has here
the meaning of the volcano under fearing flash lightning
from heaven to the earth several times. To experience such a
spectacle in the sense of the saga gave us a real feeling
standing in front of a godlike show.
tb
tb
tb
But what
was the reason for this flashover lightning in such a
dimension? In the starry nights of the 4/16th to the 4/18th we
could observe that the lava fountains with an estimated
height of 300m and also good visible with the naked eye,
was surrounded with hundreds of 'micro flashes' (up
to 10 per second, new unit fls/s) at the beginning of a strong
dynamic push.
The impulse took place for ca. two minutes.
tb
When a lava push ended the flash appearance expanded to
the entire plume. Huge flashes with a length of may 4-6 km
twitched sometimes in a low altitude over the whole glacier
surface every 5-10 seconds at the first night. Some flashes
left the cloud and took course in the free space around.
Than, always after a lightning phase a break up to 10
minutes occurred. During this time, sporadic lightings could
be seen too, - till the next lava push started again.
tb
tb
Remarkable to observe was, that particular bright and
strong flashes twitched between the two high active
vents (more I couldn't recognise) from the crater to a
height of may 1-2 km. May the reason was the different
electrostatic potential which did balance themselves out
by taking the 'short way'. Than,
in the further way the two
different clouds of different consistence (scroll down
to the daylight exposures) were mixed together in
the big plume and caused a big electric chaos. The
behaviour of the eruptions let conclude on this reason
and may underline this theory. Suggestions are welcome.
tb
And this
in addition. During we got overwhelmed with the spectacular
glittering phenomena over the volcano; an aurora bow about
160° did appear around 2:00 o’clock in the morning of the
4/17th. I made the comparisons with piano keyboards which
wrote nice
coloured
melodies in the starry night sky.
Sometimes they appeared more intensive, - sometimes the
streamer moved fast, - than they disappeared again,- and
appeared at another place.
But the reality on the ground was
hard. In which direction I should fix the camera? If I take
the aurora I’ll miss a lot of lightnings, vice
versa I would miss my first aurora. By a comfortable
temperature of -7C° and a strong wind in the wide plain I
denied installing up the backup camera. But with a record
ominous high speed changing of positions I may find a good
compromise.
Around the Eyjafjalla
4/17/2010