salif « wwalert

Volcanic Eruption in the Red Sea (Yemen) reported

December 21, 2011 – According to local news, a volcano erupted near Saba Island in the Red Sea on Monday 19 Dec 2011. The report comes from fishermen from Salif, a port city in western Yemen. They reported seeing lava fountains rising 20-30 meter which could be seen from “3 hours” (sailing time) away. The likely source of the eruption, if the reports are true, could be one of the islands Zubair islands: Jebel Zubair, Centre Peak, Saba, or Haycock island, which form a small archipelago 30 miles (50 km) west of Salif. The islands belong to a mostly submerged, active shield volcano located on the Red Sea rift axis.

The fishermen are said that “this was the first volcano they ever seen in the region”, which is not surprising as the last activity of the volcano was an eruption in 1824.

…(Volcano Discovery)

December 21, 2011 Posted by murkraz | Volcanic | lava fountains, red sea, salif, volcanic eruption, zubair islands | Leave a comment

Lunar Phase

The Sun Today: March 23, 2012

Solar Winds: 377.5 km/h
Density: 1.4 protons/cm³ – Sunspots: 86 – The geomagnetic field was quiet to active on March 22.

Solar wind speed at SOHO ranged between 345 and 442 km/s. A minor disturbance was observed arriving at ACE near 18h and caused unsettled conditions for the remainder of the day and early on March 23.

Solar flux measured at 20h UTC on 2.8 GHz was 102.4 (decreasing 6.5 over the last solar rotation). The Potsdam WDC planetary A index was 9 (STAR Ap – based on the mean of three hour interval ap indices: 8.6). Three hour interval K indices: 12110134 (planetary), 11001233 (Boulder).

The background x-ray flux is undetermined (the main data source for x-ray flux, GOES-15, is unavailable. SWPC is using GOES-13 to monitor x-ray flux).

At midnight UTC the visible solar disk had 8 spotted active regions (in 2K resolution SDO images).

Region 11433 [N09W82] decayed slowly and quietly.
Region 11438 [S14E44] was quiet and stable.
Region 11440 [S26W38] decayed and currently has a magnetically simple structure.
New region 11441 [S28W56] emerged in the southwest quadrant on March 19 and was numbered by SWPC 3 days later.
New region 11442 [N12E52] emerged in the northeast quadrant on March 21 and got an SWPC number one day later.
New region 11443 [N16E65] rotated into view at the northeast limb on March 21 and was assigned a number by SWPC the following day.

Spotted regions not reported by NOAA/SWPC:
[S1543] emerged in the northeast quadrant on March 22. Location at midnight: N20E52
[S1544] emerged in the northeast quadrant on March 22. Location at midnight: N23E14

An active region is early on March 23 rotating into view at the southeast limb (S23E86) with several spots. The region could produce C flares.

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs)

March 20-22: No obviously Earth directed CMEs were observed in LASCO and STEREO imagery.

Coronal holes

Coronal hole history (since October 2002)
Compare today’s report to the situation one solar rotation ago: 28 days ago 27 days ago 26 days ago

A coronal hole (CH508) in the southern hemisphere was in an Earth facing position on March 20. CH508 decayed and had closed on March 22 due to new corona from AR 11440. A very elongated recurrent trans equatorial coronal hole (CH509) will rotate into an Earth facing position on March 23-26.

Coronal hole map