If Wishes made Weather

I'm afraid my assessment is far less scientific than that John - just going off the size on JonFr's plot and comparing to others that have been similar.

And bang on cue what looks like a circa mag 4 earthquake showing on JonFr's sensor plots.

It looks like we may be in for a big night with multiple shocks in the Bárðarbunga caldera since this morning. I'm not sure Brickfielder that your thoughts are musings are so mad. There is clearly something around the 6 to 8 km depth that is causing the unquiet there and although I wouldn't know what it is, it would appear that it isnt particularly fluid as I would have thought that a sort of uniform fluidity in the magma would a) show few or no quakes owing to less friction, and b) such quakes as occur would be more randomly spread?

Interesting that they appear to have upgraded this one from (I think) a 3.5 or so before, bearing in mind that the difference in energy between the two appears to be in excess of an amazing 30 gigajoules.

Perhaps? Although the chart is interesting as the longer moving average would suggest that there is perhaps a bit of inflation at present that perhaps ties in with the number of quakes today lower in the magma chamber or possible input feed?

Amazing that JonFr's equipment could track this. I had assumed (wrongly) that somehow they would only 'see' local events to Iceland.

Looks like another quake around 15 mins ago going off JonFr's monitors. Possibly around Richter Scale 4?

Fascinating developments today. In particular, I cannot help thinking that if the caldera or flank of Baroarbunga gives, then it will go with a big crack as the weight of the ice around it must have, and continue, to compress its constituent materials into something more solid than in an equivalent structure without the ice pressure. Presumably then more pressure is required to break it than in a non ice compressed case.

Things are clearly quiet different on the various tremor graphs this morning - and one or two are way out. Jon Frimmar's Hekla plot is active, but Boovarsholar is flat-lining. Not sure if its the storm or something more generally seismic is afoot. I see the rate of quake occurrence has fallen since the fissure opened and pressure is let out.

Hard to see from the webcams at the moment. Looks to be blowing an absolute hoolie though. I had also noted that the IMO have upped the warning level for an eruption at Baroarbunga. The 500+m of ice though will take a lot of punching through before anything could be seen I would have thought. The weight of this though must make some sort of structural collapse of the caldrea or flanks more likely though?

The camera is at http://www.livefromiceland.is/webcams/bardarbunga-2/ It looks like almost all of the tremor recorders are showing increased activity, but this appears to be almost universal so perhaps storm related?

Very interesting overnight. As Solentwaters has noted, clearly lava/flames coming out of the fissure at the moment. Also, looking at the plot on the IMO website although the total number of quakes is lower than this time yesterday, the proportion of quakes over 2 is higher with several over 3. As suspected, the larger quakes have been in the night time hours. The scatter has been greater than Friday night and there is clearly a different behaviour being evidenced. Looking onto the 3d Bulge plots there are three areas where the larger quakes are occurring: 1 - Bunga 2- roughly half way along the fissure 3 - at the end of the fissure. The latter, when taken together with the lava leaking out of the fissure might imply that the lava feed into the fissure remains strong and that its seeking to expand into more difficult territory at the end of the fissure, but is finding that the way to the surface has less resistance.

It looks like there has been a quieter (not quiet) 8 hrs or so since mid morning, however there does appear to a certain cyclical rhythm to the earthquakes with fewer larger quakes during daylight hours (as per table below from the Icelandic Met Office website. Although not a very relevant topic to this thread, the IMO website is an absolute pleasure with various sections aimed at different levels of reader from simple graphic overview charts, to areas that are in more technical detail, and cited extracts and links to even more specialist research materials in its various earth science topics. Date Time Latitude Longitude Depth Magnitude Quality Location Saturday 30.08.2014 07:03:02 64.611 -17.457 2.9 km 5.4 99.0 4.7 km SE of Bárðarbunga Saturday 30.08.2014 06:18:43 64.678 -17.465 9.1 km 4.2 99.0 5.1 km NE of Bárðarbunga Saturday 30.08.2014 02:35:34 64.676 -17.463 8.3 km 4.5 99.0 5.0 km NE of Bárðarbunga Friday 29.08.2014 20:12:23 64.872 -16.839 11.9 km 3.0 99.0 19.5 km E of Trölladyngja Friday 29.08.2014 17:45:02 64.860 -16.845 9.7 km 3.0 99.0 19.3 km ENE of Kistufell Friday 29.08.2014 16:27:44 64.667 -17.458 4.9 km 4.1 99.0 4.5 km NE of Bárðarbunga Friday 29.08.2014 13:17:50 64.861 -16.848 8.0 km 3.3 99.0 19.2 km ENE of Kistufell Friday 29.08.2014 12:21:46 64.683 -17.430 9.2 km 5.2 99.0 6.6 km NE of Bárðarbunga Friday 29.08.2014 11:14:59 64.674 -17.461 6.8 km 4.8 99.0 4.9 km NE of Bárðarbunga Friday 29.08.2014 08:16:25 64.625 -17.366 6.1 km 3.4 99.0 7.9 km ESE of Bárðarbunga Friday 29.08.2014 06:38:11 64.848 -16.849 5.7 km 3.5 99.0 18.6 km ENE of Kistufell Friday 29.08.2014 04:37:54 64.660 -17.384 0.8 km 3.8 99.0 7.2 km ENE of Bárðarbunga Friday 29.08.2014 00:34:53 64.805 -16.898 14.2 km 3.3 99.0 14.9 km E of Kistufell Thursday 28.08.2014 23:01:18 64.671 -17.460 5.4 km 3.3 99.0 4.7 km NE of Bárðarbunga Thursday 28.08.2014 21:19:35 64.803 -16.901 10.3 km 3.0 99.0 14.8 km E of Kistufell Thursday 28.08.2014 20:21:30 64.802 -16.895 3.3 km 3.1 99.0 15.0 km E of Kistufell

Interesting new update from Icelandic Met Office on their website noting the somewhat increased probability of an eruption of Bárðarbunga. I have also noted something of an uptick in some of the 2-4 Hz tremor activity today from some of the stations.

seems a bit windier here than I expected. Some hefty gusts coming through now.

Just got a suspicion about tomorrow's storm. The various models are suggesting gusts a tad stronger for our region than the MetO is on their website. We shall see,

Squall line through Stortford now. Quite dramatic for some minutes.

Well this is interesting - note the large area of high pressure off the Canadian coast. With luck this will stop the relentless west-east movement of systems.

Metoffice weathermap (on their website) shows quite nicely what is forecast to develop and hit us circa midnight to three a.m. Currently in the western approaches, but should build quite rapidly and intensity as it appears to slow down over the SE.

Greater Anglia now withdrawing Cambridge service by the look of things. Problems on other lines as well.

This now from Greater Anglia: On Monday 23 December the weather forecast indicates that a storm with winds of up to 70mph will affect our network from around 18:00 and throughout the night. Based on this forecast we have taken a decision to run trains at reduced speeds from 18:00 until the end of the day. These speed restrictions will limit the number of trains that we can run, particularly during the evening rush hour and customers who are able to do so are strongly advised to complete their journeys early. We will publish full details of the reduced evening rush hour service tomorrow. On Tuesday 24 December we do not expect to run any trains on any routes across our Network until 10:00. This is to allow us to run train at low speed along each line on our network in daylight in order to check for damage to overhead wires and/or any debris from the storm.

Well it looks as if this could be troubling. Round here, no-one seems to take any notice of the forecasts: bins left out/not tied down, parking cars next to walls or buildings which even an optimistic eye would suggest are not in the best state of repair etc. Presumably another day of train chaos from Greater Anglia?

Authorities in Hamburg (being predictably more empirical than their counterparts here in their public information) are expecting a storm surge of 5.10m above 'normal null'. To counter public concern they have noted that the dykes have been improved since 1962 and can now stand a flood of 8m.

Things are now being taken seriously in norhtern Germany with regard to this storm which is being called Xavier. Schools are being closed for the day in certain counties, Hamburg has drafted extra personnel in for its subway/urban transport system including 4 special groups equipped to deal with fallen trees. All emergancy services are drafting all staff in. Fire brigades will have every truck (including reserve vehicles) manned and on standby in the firestations and out at certain areas which are flooding and wind prone. Coast guard on full alert and great concern on the Hallig Islands and in particular in Hamburg as the synoptics are not dissimilar to those which caused the flooding in 1962.

Agreed. I think part of the problem - at least my perception - this 'season' is that the models are modelling against, at times, conflicting or not very strong atmospheric signals leaving us with contradictory runs adn much variability. Interestingly though I am noticing that for this time of year, at which normally a stronger and reasonably symterical PV is being formed, what is being modelled is often anything but which may perhaps bode for colder later in the winter. Perhaps the only thing that one can say regarding the models at present is what they havent been showing for the past couple of months again, and that is long draw south westerly Tm aimasses covering the country. We have seen a little bit of most everything else though with Pm, PmR etc and now some Polar meridonal flow being indicated as possible (but not necessarily very probable).