Weather Blog

Yellow moon? Check. Pink hearts and green clovers next?

Yellow moon? Check. Pink hearts and green clovers next?
We've had a few people e-mail in asking about the yellow tinge to the moon lately.  Turns out, it might be related to a volcanic eruption in Alaska.

The Okmok Volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Islands began erupting last week and spewed the usual ash and sulfur gasses thousands of feet high into the atmosphere.

Weather patterns have shifted part of the plume down to our latitude, and that map above shows the track of the plume as of Thursday.

It's high enough that it shouldn't cause any problems down here, but the ash and gas is likely what's putting a yellow color to the moon. I should point out that I've also received e-mails from people that heard the clouds around this morning are a result of the volcano or even that the clouds themselves are the ash plume. That is incorrect. The low, gray overcast is just our usual push of marine clouds as is typical for summer. They are in no way related to the volcano.

Clouds will be much more limited over the weekend, so maybe if your lucky charms are working, you too can spy the yellow moon :)

More information: