This is a government picture we got off the AVO website - it is a radar picture of the ash cloud an hour after Redoubt erupted. Last time it erupted, the ash took almost 6 hours to reach us - this time it was here before the AVO have even announced the explosion. Isn't this a cool photo? we live sort of right in the middle of the cloud just about 1/8 inch north of where the road jigs west. The volcano quieted down and showed signs of a lava dome building. On the monitors, there were these perfectly timed little blips - looked like goblins hammering in unison for 24 hours. When we went to bed, Alicia looked at those rhythmic blips and said, it's gonna blow.
We woke early this morning to the dogs barking their heads off. Our dogs are very well behaved and don't just randomly bark. Alicia could hear what sounded like footsteps on the stairs and porch and the dogs kept barking and she thought, OH NO, we are being robbed. So she opened her window and looked out and there was this black black cloud coming from the volcano and tons of thunder. We never get thunder here - it is one of the anamolies of living here. We have thunder maybe once every three or 4 years... usually just one clap, maybe two. Never a long term thunder and lightning storm. So these dogs who have lived here all their lives have never experienced a thunder storm before.
anyway, we all got up and every once in a while we could see the orange lightning like in the pictures from last week and we heard lots of thunder. It was really spooky. The cloud was much darker and quicker than last week. Daytime had just arrived and then it went dark as midnight. I mean DARK ! ! ! And then the ash started falling.
On the NOAA radar, which we usually use to track storm clouds, we can sometimes track the volcano and today, the weather radar showed the ash cloud coming straight from the volcano to OUR HOUSE ! ! ! We were the very first hit (I think most of you know that we live on the bluff of the point of Anchor Point - we are like the actual most westerly highway point in America) so lots of times our neighborhood gets storms and winds and stuff before anybody else on the mainland.
So it lasted about an hour - just black as night. We got a call from Homer that they were cancelling conference at the church and it was still daylight there and when Brian told her that it was black as night here and ash was falling - it scared her and she hung up to prepare.
It was also surreal because we could click on the pictures from the webcams that are on the north side of the volcano and while we were sitting here in darkest darkness, the webcams were in broad daylight on the other side of the volcano.
the cloud moved fairly quickly and then it was just yellow and brown in the sky - I'm sure people who grew up in Kansas and Texas were looking for a storm cellar, because it was that heavy, yellow that is so scary if you have lived in tornado country. The tail of the cloud was lit from the bottom by daylight, so the horizon was divided in three parts - the grey earth that was completely covered with 1/4 to 1/2 inch ash, then the daylight, then the yellow and brown of the cloud.
It was so cool.
the ash today was actually loud as it hit - meaning the other day, it was very soft ash and this ash was the lava dome all smashed to pieces and it was much more little pieces of rock.
The Homer News actually has a story from today with pics from Homer - they only publish the paper once a week, but have this story from this morning on there if you want to read it. The cars at the end of the story belong to our friends Heather and Trace in their car rental business. If you ever need a car in Homer you should rent from them - Adventure Alaska.
We have pictures, but I don't know if they can even begin to vaguely show you what it was like. We'll post them later.
We woke early this morning to the dogs barking their heads off. Our dogs are very well behaved and don't just randomly bark. Alicia could hear what sounded like footsteps on the stairs and porch and the dogs kept barking and she thought, OH NO, we are being robbed. So she opened her window and looked out and there was this black black cloud coming from the volcano and tons of thunder. We never get thunder here - it is one of the anamolies of living here. We have thunder maybe once every three or 4 years... usually just one clap, maybe two. Never a long term thunder and lightning storm. So these dogs who have lived here all their lives have never experienced a thunder storm before.
anyway, we all got up and every once in a while we could see the orange lightning like in the pictures from last week and we heard lots of thunder. It was really spooky. The cloud was much darker and quicker than last week. Daytime had just arrived and then it went dark as midnight. I mean DARK ! ! ! And then the ash started falling.
On the NOAA radar, which we usually use to track storm clouds, we can sometimes track the volcano and today, the weather radar showed the ash cloud coming straight from the volcano to OUR HOUSE ! ! ! We were the very first hit (I think most of you know that we live on the bluff of the point of Anchor Point - we are like the actual most westerly highway point in America) so lots of times our neighborhood gets storms and winds and stuff before anybody else on the mainland.
So it lasted about an hour - just black as night. We got a call from Homer that they were cancelling conference at the church and it was still daylight there and when Brian told her that it was black as night here and ash was falling - it scared her and she hung up to prepare.
It was also surreal because we could click on the pictures from the webcams that are on the north side of the volcano and while we were sitting here in darkest darkness, the webcams were in broad daylight on the other side of the volcano.
the cloud moved fairly quickly and then it was just yellow and brown in the sky - I'm sure people who grew up in Kansas and Texas were looking for a storm cellar, because it was that heavy, yellow that is so scary if you have lived in tornado country. The tail of the cloud was lit from the bottom by daylight, so the horizon was divided in three parts - the grey earth that was completely covered with 1/4 to 1/2 inch ash, then the daylight, then the yellow and brown of the cloud.
It was so cool.
the ash today was actually loud as it hit - meaning the other day, it was very soft ash and this ash was the lava dome all smashed to pieces and it was much more little pieces of rock.
The Homer News actually has a story from today with pics from Homer - they only publish the paper once a week, but have this story from this morning on there if you want to read it. The cars at the end of the story belong to our friends Heather and Trace in their car rental business. If you ever need a car in Homer you should rent from them - Adventure Alaska.
We have pictures, but I don't know if they can even begin to vaguely show you what it was like. We'll post them later.
2 comments:
Wow! Amazing description! Hope you guys are all ok. Sounds pretty incredible! Keep us posted. We love you.
Love, Earlene
How scary! How exciting and amazing!!Keep your hard hats on!I so glad you let us know. The thunder and lightining must have been awesome! Love you much. Mother
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