If Wishes made Weather

Interestingly I notice the same sort of differences between my UK location and my German one. In both cases we are in dry regions with the German location just a tad more dry at around 500mm per year. Our house is in the western slopes of the Rhine valley in the Pfalz wine producing area. Fairly notable is greater sunshine hours in summer in Germany and the occasional hefty hail storm although being right on the western facing slopes (at around 200m altitude), we are quite sheltered. Summer temperatures are notably higher in our German location (can be 40c every couple of years) with our south facing garden at the front being arid and usable only really as a stone garden with plants that can take those sort of temperatures and conditions. Ideally a winter garden - which would be unthinkable even in our Anglian UK location - would be on the north side of the house or under partial shelter from herbage in summer. Winters are a tad colder, but nothing like as cold as Berlin. The temperature though can easily be cold enough in winter for Atlantic fronts - which are still active as we are well west by German standards right on the French border - to drop precipitation as snow. Often rain turns to snow in the Voges to the west of us and stays as snow except right on the Rhine which has quite a notable localized warming effect. The deepest single snowfall this winter was circa 20cm in our German location and I think none in the UK. Interestingly I notice the same sort of differences between my UK location and my German one. In both cases we are in dry regions with the German location just a tad more dry at around 500mm per year. Our house is in the western slopes of the Rhine valley in the Pfalz wine producing area. Fairly notable is greater sunshine hours in summer in Germany and the occasional hefty hail storm although being right on the western facing slopes (at around 200m altitude), we are quite sheltered. Summer temperatures are notably higher in our German location (can be 40c every couple of years) with our south facing garden at the front being arid and usable only really as a stone garden with plants that can take those sort of temperatures and conditions. Ideally a winter garden - which would be unthinkable even in our Anglian UK location - would be on the north side of the house or under partial shelter from herbage in summer. Winters are a tad colder, but nothing like as cold as Berlin. The temperature though can easily be cold enough in winter for Atlantic fronts - which are still active as we are well west by German standards right on the French border - to drop precipitation as snow. Often rain turns to snow in the Voges to the west of us and stays as snow except right on the Rhine which has quite a notable localized warming effect. The deepest single snowfall this winter was circa 20cm in our German location and I think none in the UK.

Absolutely - and the mild air is squeezed out of the mid-Atlantic

Looks to be a lot of tremor in the 2-4 Hz band now.

Hell of a depth to it Jon - the Moine thrust runs just there.

Not sure if this is real, or a ghost in the machine, but somewhere between the islands of Eigg and Coll, according to the EMSC, a mag 5.5 about an hour and a half ago: M 5.5RegionSCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOMDate time2014-10-09 19:15:21.2 UTCLocation56.70 N ; 6.39 WDepth120 kmDistances308 km N of Douglas, Isle of Man / pop: 26,218 / local time: 20:15:21.2 2014-10-09 214 km NW of Edinburgh, United Kingdom / pop: 435,791 / local time: 20:15:21.2 2014-10-09 95 km NW of Lochgilphead, United Kingdom / pop: 2,272 / local time: 20:15:21.2 2014-10-09 65 km NW of Oban, United Kingdom / pop: 8,081 / local time: 20:15:21.2 2014-10-09

I think you are right John - the IMO seem to upgrade them once they have made their assessments.

Looks like there has just been a big one: Magnitude M 4.6 Region ICELAND Date time 2014-10-05 16:58:56.1 UTC Location 64.63 N ; 18.06 W Depth 2 km Distances 193 km E of Reykjavík, Iceland / pop: 113,906 / local time: 16:58:56.1 2014-10-05 117 km S of Akureyri / pop: 16,563 / local time: 16:58:00.0 2014-10-05

And, again, relatively shallow this one John - I know that there is some speculation on one or two of the other sites that activity in the (possibly several) caldera is slowly declining, but I'm not so sure.

Stronger quake on the way - circa 10 mins ago. 3d Bulge just showing it as a mag 2 at the moment until verified. I would suggest a possible 4.8?

GPS now falling away very rapidly:

Tremor plots nearly off the scale in this storm this afternoon.

Big uptick in tremor activity this morning:

Looking at the latest tremor measurements possibly another small eruption under the glacier in the Grimsfjall area at present?

Something strange showing up on the tremor plots around Grimsfjall (also HUS and VOT) a la:

Ah - I see it now. Right at the depth that so many of the larger quakes have been. The tremor plots certainly are all over the place.

Yes John - really impressive. Imagine the chaos if this broke out in the UK. Generally on this 'eq quiet' period, I dont for a minute buy the idea that it might have stopped - at least as far as Baroarbunga is concerned as I think a slow down, when it comes, will be gradual, just as the uptick over the past few days in the frequency of larger quakes has been gradual.

Hello John - something about this quiet period and this missing quake is somewhat unquieting. The GPS thing is falling off a clifff again, but that does't really mean much. My thoughts would be that perhaps a warmer, or (more?) acidic magma is moving that is causing less friction?

Strangely, the last quake showing on JonFr's geophone plot about half an hour ago - which I would put at a large 3 or small 4, has not been picked up on the CSEM site? Also no site of it yet on 3d Bulge?

It might be weather related, but the tremor plots on the IMO site are showing quite rapidly increasing activity.

Amazing stuff - there has been some talk on the various sites about 6+ earthquakes needed to cause some sort of structural damage to the volcano, but I wonder if actually repeated lower level quakes might have a similar effect. The GPS thing has been showing a continued decline.

EMSC suggesting that its in the 4.1 to 4.3 range - timed at 17:11 local time

Looks like a sudden swarm of big quakes. On JonFr's its showing a couple in the last 10 mins or so that are in excess of 3 (one perhaps a 4+). IMO yet to verify. Some of the tremor plots are quite high as well.

It looks like quite a lot of the tremor plots have been rising a bit this afternoon, and another 4+ as Kayro notices (although 3dBulge are not showing it on their system). That seems to be 48hrs of these 3+ quakes at regular intervals in the caldera. Clearly something has changed a bit.

Looks to be Karyo, and the GPS thing is falling off a cliff at the moment. http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Bardarb/BARC/

Thanks for that John - I'll save the address. Looks like that they have upped it a bit more to 4.5, and taken the depth down from the initial 1.1km to 6.5km. Exactly where the other ones have been today. The more of this, the more I wonder how much the volcano's ice encasement is preventing some sort of structural collapse.