Volcanic Ash From Etna Eruption Drifting Over U.S.

Volcanic ash plume drifting over Lake Michigan is from colossal Etna eruption in Italy

Strange Sounds

Satellites detected something incredible in the air over Lake Michigan this week. Volcanic plumes from thousands of miles away!

According to the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) University of Wisconsin-Madison, a GOES East satellite captured a narrow ribbon of hazy airborne aerosols late on Wednesday, March 3, 2021.

The particles became visible looking toward the sunset as forward scattering of sunlight increased.

Satellites later detected sulfur dioxide clouds traveling over the North Pacific and Canada as well.

Researchers believe the volcanic debris drifted all the way to the U.S. from Italy, after the Feb. 24-25 eruption of Mt. Etna in Sicily.

“This is pretty incredible,” staff wrote on Facebook. “Volcanic plumes over Lake Michigan. Now that’s a rare event.”

Mt. Etna on the east coast of Sicily has erupted seven times in the past two weeks.

Beginning with an eruption on Feb. 16, the twelfth paroxysm of the sequence occurred on March 12, 2021. Here’s a video:

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