Dim view: ashfall darkens island’s skies

Gloom has settled over the land, as Barbadians woke up to deeply overcast skies – the fallout of a plume of ash from the erupting La Soufriere volcano in neighbouring St Vincent.

The ashfall triggered the closure of the airport and air quality health warnings from the authorities, as the pall cast over the island triggered memories of the volcano’s last major eruption exactly 42 years ago.

Residents in north and western parishes particularly St Lucy and St Peter describe a fine black dust settling on outdoor surfaces.

The Barbados Meteorological Services (BMS) said that ashfall has been affecting the island since late yesterday evening and into this morning.

BMS Director Sabu Best in an update said this morning: “There is ash falling across the entire island, the visibility has been reduced considerably,  we are talking about 5 to 6 km or so horizontally. Saharan dust haze also remains present across the island which will continue to reduce visibility.”

He said while there was no real threat, fishers should exercise extreme caution especially if they are going out to the west of the island.

Mariners were otherwise urged to stay in port, particularly if GPS is not in use on vessels.

Best explained there was a series of eruptions at  La Soufriere volcano throughout the night and massive eruptions were spilling huge ash plumes high up in the atmosphere.

He said: “We have received reports of up to 40, 000 feet in the air.  When it goes to this kind of height, it gets caught up in the western flow which pushes ash and ash cloud towards Barbados.”

He added he could not say how long it would last but cautioned it could continue up to Monday.

Best declared: “It is difficult to predict this because you cannot predict how long the volcano will erupt but it is continuing to do so and by all indications, it looks like it will be like this for the entire day.

“The only respite we hope to get is that there will be a change in wind direction but that does not look possible at all for the entire weekend and  especially on Monday when the upper level winds should almost be directly from St Vincent to Barbados.”

The continuing ashfall has resulted in the closure of the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) until Sunday.