Ash Friday – 4 June 2010

A lot of ash was blowing around the south-west Iceland on Friday. The ash stems from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption.

The satellite image below shows the large gray area, where as is blowing, clearly.

Measurements of PM10 concentration show that the levels were very high at times in the Reykjavik area on 4 June 2010.

This figure shows the measured PM10 concentration at Grensás (GRE), Fjölskyldu-og Húsdýragarðinum (FHG), and Hvaleyrarholti, Hfj (HEH) – all in the Reykjavik area. The HEH data are 10-min averages, while GRE and FHG are 30-min averages (therefore we would expect higher peaks in the 10-min data).

Measurements closer to the volcano, at Vík (Vik 10-min), Heimaland (Heimal. 10-min) and Hvolsvöllur (Hvolsv. 30-min), show that the concentration at Heimaland, between Vik and Hvolsvöllur, went very high, while the Hvolsvöllur data has too many gaps to really be able to tell, and Vík was relatively (compared to other stations that day) low. The reason for that is that the wind-direction was easterly, and not much blew into town (this time).

 

The daily values have been high for the Vík, Heimaland and Hvolsvöllur stations all May (eruption stopped on 23 May 2010). The plot below shows this clearly.

This figure shows the daily average values at Vík (blue), Hvolsvöllur (reddish) and Heimaland (green).

At Vík there have been 5 days in this period with PM10 daily average over 200 mu-g/m3 (micro-grams per cubic meter): 8, 11, 12, 13 and 27 May.

At Heimaland there have been at least 3 (since mid-May), and at Hvolsvöllur at least 5 (since mid-May).

The highest levels have been at Heimaland, 1098 mu-g/m3 on 26 May, and 1008 on 4 June.