Fiery Thunderstorm!

[Stanley_9875]

I ran across this while on MSN.com... very very cool pictures of a volcano in Iceland called Eyjafjallajokull. Here are a few pictures...









Here's the link

[Helicoradian]

That's just wicked looking, but absolutely incredible at the same time. Just hope the ash doesn't cause too much trouble for the people in that region

Thanks for the pics + link Stanley

[Thorinair]

WOW, it's amazing what nature can do...

[zongtseng]

That is just... wow. Amazing. I do landscape photography in nature every year, and a situation like this is the kind of thing a photographer dreams of.

[Silver Storm]

wow! that's nasty! but it looks beautifull! did not know there was also lightning involved with vulcano's .. did you?

[Isard]

O.O

That looks like something from a movie or something...

I'd hate to see Iceland harmed by this, they really don't deserve it... : /

[Human No More]

Those are some nice pictures, even if right now it is preventing one of my friends from going on his holiday
Another one apparently landed 30 min before the airspace was closed, so he was lucky there, as there are loads of people stranded in Europe now.

[allycat]

even tho its not a good thing, it does look VERY fantastic!! it is something like out of a movie!! it looks like a thunderstorm mixed with a volcano !! its the strangest thing lol

[rapunzel77]

WOW! That looks both terrifying and beautiful. I know it is messing up a lot of flights and there are people who are camped out in airports all over the world due to this eruption but wow...what amazing pictures!

[tallbluewanderer]

Holy crap!

I've been hearing about this volcano in the news for the last few days, but I didn't know it looked like something out of Weta Digital! I just hope that when the dust settles (literally) nobody's too much the worse for wear.

[Tsyal Makto]

Wow, that's incredible. Thanks for posting.

And in case anyone is wondering, THIS is why they don't fly jets through volcanic ash clouds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrNuY2qXWhI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

[Wanderling]

Those are incredible images...thanks for finding and sharing those, Stan! It's frightening to think of the damage just the ash can do, and the problems it has already caused, but to see it is really just amazing.

[Rabbit]

How would this happen??

[Txum_kali'weya]

Explanation: Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting early last month. Magma bubbles so hot they glow shoot away as liquid rock bursts through the Earth's surface from below. The above image is particularly notable, however, for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano's summit. Why lightning occurs even in common thunderstorms remains a topic of research, and the cause of volcanic lightning is even less clear. Surely, lightning bolts help quench areas of opposite but separated electric charges. One hypothesis holds that catapulting magma bubbles or volcanic ash are themselves electrically charged, and by their motion create these separated areas. Other volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust. Lightning is usually occurring somewhere on Earth, typically over 40 times each second.

link(original)

the awesome power of nature.

[Seshat Tsahìk]

Wow Indeed!