Smoke Haze

Danno

Is it a local condition or what?

Valentia reports SMOKE HAZE at 1600z on Monday Feb 18th...

Source: http://www.met.ie/latest/reports.asp

BELMULLET S 01 HAZE 9 71 0.0 1029
BIRR(P) E 02 HAZE 7 75 0.0 1030
CASEMENT E 10 FINE 6 78 0.0 1030
CLAREMORRIS(A) SE 07 - n/a - 7 66 0.0 1030
CLONES(P) NE 05 MIST 4 92 0.0 1031
CORK AIRPORT E 08 MIST 7 83 0.0 1029
DUBLIN AIRPORT NE 07 MIST 6 78 0.0 1031
FINNER CAMP(A) E 08 - n/a - 4 87 n/a 1030
JOHNSTOWN C (A) E 06 - n/a - 6 82 0.0 1030
KILKENNY(P) S 03 MIST 9 63 0.0 1030
KNOCK AIRPORT E 07 MIST 5 83 0.0 1030
MALIN HEAD E 12 MIST 7 76 0.0 1031
MULLINGAR(P) E 07 HAZE 7 74 0.0 1030
ROCHES POINT(A) E 08 - n/a - 8 83 0.0 1029
ROSSLARE E 02 MIST 7 84 0.0 1030
SHANNON AIRPORT E 08 MIST 7 75 0.0 1029
VALENTIA SE 04 SMOKE HAZE 10 59 0.0 1028
NOTE: Above is based on the LATEST observations received.

Any ideas anyone?

DOCARCH

Could simply be heather burning, forest fire, or something similar?

Valentia weather station is actually on the mainland at Cahersiveen - a south east wind would be blowing over the mountains down to Cahersiveen.

ninebeanrows

I don't know but the air is very polluted at the moment because there has been very little mixing in the lower atmosphere over the last 7 days, so it could be a mix of pollution and mist.

Supercell

There certainly is heather burning going on, all the mountains around me have fires lit, seems to be the time of year for it. ish they didnt do it in inversion conditions.
At least I'm lucky here in the sense that the air is flowing down.
In work it was milky skies and sunshine all day , at least here is nice and blue.

DOCARCH

Longfield wrote: »

There certainly is heather burning going on, all the mountains around me have fires lit, seems to be the time of year for it. ish they didnt do it in inversion conditions.
At least I'm lucky here in the sense that the air is flowing down.
In work it was milky skies and sunshine all day , at least here is nice and blue.

I figured - since I posted, I have gotten that burning turf smell and the sky is a really weird smoky yellow in the sunset.

Wertz

Weathercheck wrote: »

I don't know but the air is very polluted at the moment because there has been very little mixing in the lower atmosphere over the last 7 days, so it could be a mix of pollution and mist.

I was about to create a thread about this....anyone notice the insane pre-dawn and post-dusk colouration of the sky the past 2-3 days?
This morning heading down the M1, we saw what looked like sodium lights reflected on low cloud, but there was no cloud...it's like the sun is illuminating very high cirrus layer through a haze/dust layer and turning it orange. Then that disappears and a while later it starts lightening up for dawn. This is a good 60+ minutes before sunrise and is even 10 or so minutes ahead of "real" danw
Similarly both tonight and last night, about 20 minutes after sunset the sky has turned a lilac/yellowish orange colour, leaving everything looking very odd....also the sun disc can be seen right till it's last ray, glowing red.
Amazing spell of dry weather...

rc28

Wertz wrote: »

I was about to create a thread about this....anyone notice the insane pre-dawn and post-dusk colouration of the sky the past 2-3 days?
This morning heading down the M1, we saw what looked like sodium lights reflected on low cloud, but there was no cloud...it's like the sun is illuminating very high cirrus layer through a haze/dust layer and turning it orange. Then that disappears and a while later it starts lightening up for dawn. This is a good 60+ minutes before sunrise and is even 10 or so minutes ahead of "real" danw
Similarly both tonight and last night, about 20 minutes after sunset the sky has turned a lilac/yellowish orange colour, leaving everything looking very odd....also the sun disc can be seen right till it's last ray, glowing red.
Amazing spell of dry weather...

That's exactly what I've been seeing too, the sunset "glow" is particularly noticeable though.

Snowbie

It seems that we are not alone in experiencing this sky

http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?showtopic=45801

Trogdor

Yep, saw that really freaky sky this morning as well.

Takeshi_Kovacs

I was going to post about this a few days, ago, as it has been ongoing for the last few days of settled weather. I was out around the county today, and the haze is everywhere, you can barely make out the outline of the mountains against the sky, if you are more than 10-15 miles away, any bit farther, and they seem to merge into the sky. Even looking down the road a couple hundred metres, and everything starts to become grey/purple in colour.

squonk

I loved it this morning. Couldn't really see much of it as I was on the bus coming home but at the train station this morning it was amazing to see!

Takeshi_Kovacs

Takeshi_Kovacs wrote: »

I was going to post about this a few days, ago, as it has been ongoing for the last few days of settled weather. I was out around the county today, and the haze is everywhere, you can barely make out the outline of the mountains against the sky, if you are more than 10-15 miles away, any bit farther, and they seem to merge into the sky. Even looking down the road a couple hundred metres, and everything starts to become grey/purple in colour.

That haze is common in an easterly flow in high pressure.
A lot of it is actually unfortunately polution and worse,it's not even local polution,a lot of it is imported from the source of the air.

Theres no forest fires around here and the wind direction (such as it is) means that the haze/polution is imported from the UK in my humble opinion and I'd say I'm right as it's highly unlikely that theres anything burning over the Irish sea thats causing it.

nilhg

Wertz wrote: »

I was about to create a thread about this....anyone notice the insane pre-dawn and post-dusk colouration of the sky the past 2-3 days?
This morning heading down the M1, we saw what looked like sodium lights reflected on low cloud, but there was no cloud...it's like the sun is illuminating very high cirrus layer through a haze/dust layer and turning it orange.

Since you mentioned it,

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055239514

Strange indeed.

peasant

It's an inversion. Cold air gets trapped at the bottom, capped by warmer air.
Common occurence on the continent, where weather is more stable and less changeable. Add really calm conditions (no wind movement) and it may linger for days.

Here's a picture of Stuttgart, where the cold air is trapped between the sourrounding hills.

See the smoke rising to the cold air ceiling and then just dispersing along it.



here's another one, less localised, without hills to trap the air


It can be beautiful as well though:

Danno

Dirty Brits/Europeans

Wertz

nilhg wrote: »

Since you mentioned it,

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055239514

Strange indeed.

Nice pic. I'd have killed for my camera the last few mornings but I'm always too tired to think of it and the one on the phone is awful.

I didn't get a chance to post about it yesterday but there was a repeat performance of the pre-dawn show yesterday (tues) morning. In between the banks of fog on the way to work at exactly 6.30am the same orange glow....that's a good hour+ before sun up and as well as that about 20-30mins before dawn is normally visible.

homosapien

there are a series of photos and commentary on this subject at the link below..

http://www.spaceweather.com/

I personnally was suffering fronm a heavy bout of flu over the weekend and early days of this week but noticed from inside the sunsets over the weekend being kind of spooky.. i thought it might have been a symptom of my condition!!

Wertz

Hmmm acid skies eh? Knew it had to be some sort of really high cloud...the dawn's are never like that even when we have really clear skies. Even sorrier I didn't get pics of this now...

Mothman

Valentia reporting Smoke Haze at 12z today 27th Feb.

Mothman

Smoke Haze again at Valentia at 1800

and to my SW half hour ago, it looked to me like smoke haze, not that I've ever had it pointed out to me, so it may be very different.

Supercell

Theres gorse/heather burning all over the mountains today, not the slightest surprised smoke is being reported.

Mothman

Longfield wrote: »

Theres gorse/heather burning all over the mountains today, not the slightest surprised smoke is being reported.

That explains my observation, the wind direction is right as well.

Supercell

Slightly off topic, I struggle a bit understand why they do it. The land being burned always seems to be on the higher fields or pure bogs. It hardly seems to be productive to burn the stuff at all.

I assume there must be a rational reason for it?

Wertz

Not all gorse fires are intentional but any farmers starting them deliberately are probably trying to keep it at bay so it doesn't invade grazing land, especially getting it before it comes into flower (when the seeds pop).
In hot dry weather gorse has been known to spontaneously combust.