Had a big bang last night

[Mustang]

I live about 15 miles away but to the north east and slept like a log!! One of the lucky ones it would seem! The M1 and Toddington services are like a ghost town with virtually no cars around. Very weird.

Thank god no fatalities or major injuries.

[malvolio]

Thank god no fatalities or major injuries.

Hear hear. Just imagine if it had gone off 25 hours later...

Mind you, I'm glad I'm not trying to drive in from north of London tomorrow morning.

[Churchill]

Where's WxMan? What effect will this have on weather patterns?

Those photographs are rather reminiscent of Saddam's "Scorched Earth" policy at the end of the GW1.

[wxman]

It was interesting to see the surface temps under the smoke plume yesterday – many stations were reporting temperatures some 4-6 c lower than stations that were outside the plume. A true nuclear winter!!

I have taken a peek at the upper air wind profiles for today – High pressure over North Ireland has the effect of shifting the 850mb winds (about 10,000 feet high ) towards the North East – this will push the plume away from London and down to the Isle of white.

Also looking at the upper air temperature profile for the are there is still a capping inversion in place – this will mean that the plume will remain trapped under about 10,000 feet for much of today.

Some stunning images of the smoke plume – some of which look like an inky black F5 wedge tornado over Hemel !

[wxman]

Local business who are within spitting distance of the blast have been affected - Dixon's head office is there, New World Payphones and about 1/2 of all the UK's Mcdonalds burgur buns are made less then 300 meters from the blast.

[stackpole]

It was interesting to see the surface temps under the smoke plume yesterday – many stations were reporting temperatures some 4-6 c lower than stations that were outside the plume. A true nuclear winter!!

I'm not sure whether there is anything nuclear about it.

But the wintry bit was because it was a sunny day. Wouldn't it have been the same had it just been cloudy over London?

We are lucky here in Tring because the wind is blowing the smoke away from us. And we have clear blue skies again today.

[bfg]

I think you're being rather paranoid. You've been listening to TB again, haven't you? Go on, admit it.

More likely he's been listening to Ayman al-Zawahri:

On Wednesday, a videotape by al-Qaida's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, was shown on the Internet calling for attacks against Gulf oil facilities. The video had first been released on Sept. 19 and shown on Al-Jazeera TV.

"I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam," said al-Zawahri, the Egyptian deputy of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

[alser20]

That final picture is actually how Hemel usually looks.

[DaveB]

Wow!!

I used to live near Hemel, the ex worked in the local hospital. My first reaction to seeing that one was "nothing much has changed then" :P

[wxman]

Hi-res. satellite image from 1240z today showing the plume being blown SW'wards as forecast.


http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5651/smoke6nk.jpg

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/843/smoke23sj.jpg