High pressure keeping ash away, says Met

A HIGH pressure weather system lodged over Ireland has been keeping the volcanic ash from falling on the country, according to Met Éireann.

Weather forecaster, Evelyn Cusack, said the current weather situation meant the plume had shifted eastwards slightly, allowing some restrictions on Irish airspace to be lifted yesterday.

Earlier yesterday a weather map showed the volcanic ash cloud hanging over the southern edge of the country, however there were local reports of small amounts of ash falling.

Ms Cusack said the high pressure over Ireland had created an weather inversion.

“So even if anything came into our skies, nothing is mixing so it would stay up there — it would not come down over us,” she explained.

Ms Cusack was speaking after the Government Taskforce on Emergency Planning met to discuss the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.

Ms Cusack was 100% certain the situation would remain unchanged today because of the high pressure system.

A change could be expected on Monday or Tuesday, however, with the air flow coming directly from Iceland. “But the ash may have dissipated before then,” she pointed out.

A slight change in the weather was expected tomorrow, with a weak weather front coming down over Ireland that could result in a light sprinkling of rain.

Assistant secretary of the Department of Transport, Maurice Mullen, said arrangements were in place for the rainfall to be carefully monitored.

“According to advice from Met Éireann, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Children, there are no air quality, public health or environmental concerns at this moment,” he stressed.

Mr Mullen said the EPA had a national network of air quality monitoring stations that check hourly for pollutants.

He said information was available online in real time, at www.epa.ie and advice on public health was available from the Health Service Executive at www.hse.ie

Mr Mullen said they were also interacting with their European colleagues to see what they were detecting in their atmosphere.

Ms Cusack said a south-westerly wind expected from the middle of next week would push the plume away from Ireland.

Up to Thursday it had been anticipated that the north-westerly wind coming directly down from Iceland would persist for all of next week.

“Our latest models are suggesting that there will be a huge shift in air mass and we would see an end in sight by the middle of next week.”

Ms Cusack said the volcano had been erupting since March with the clouds of ash blown away up to Greenland or the North Pole but had been brought back down by the current weather.