Etna spews ash, displays spectacular lava light show

7:55 Tuesday evening, September 4, 2007, I was sitting in my living room. I could hear rumbling in the distance and knew that it was either Mt. Etna or thunder. Since we've had a long, hot, dry summer, I hoped for rain. A few minutes later I heard a rain like sound tapping against my shutters, so I went to the front door and stepped outside.

Sure enough, there was rain coming down...only it was a shower of ash the size of bath salts. Here you can see the outline of Mt. Etna. The funnel above is a cloud of ash and steam and while it appears to be going straight up, the wind was blowing in my direction; this was no gentle breeze. If you get an opportunity to look at a map of Sicily, Mt. Etna is easy to spy...and my town (Torre Archirafi) is on the eastern coast of the island just south of Riposto.

So, I watched periodically as evening approached in hopes of seeing the lava fireworks. After all, I was going to have a real mess to clean up so I wanted some sort of satisfaction to make it all worth while.
The lava lit the mountain landscape and I knew, based on the ash that was falling, that it had to be spectacular. Usually when ash flies like this it is because a new crater opens up, but my guess is that it had something to do with the recent collapse of a crater and/or the force with which the eruption occurred.
In no time at all you could see a long lava flow in the distance. My pictures don't do it justice. Seriously, it was so much more incredible to the naked eye.
A colleague, from a closer distance and with a better camera, sent me this picture the next morning. I so need a better camera. Another colleague said that Italian news reported that the eruption was accompanied by an earthquake measuring 2.4 on the Richter scale. This makes sense since earthquakes in volcanic regions are often caused by the movement of magma beneath the earth's surface. The bursts of lava measured "many hundreds of meters high" equating to around 1,000 feet in the air. The Catania airport was closed for the evening to maintain the integrity of the planes, and of course for the safety of passengers and crews as the ash is capable of causing irreparable damage.
So, here's an early picture of the ash accumulating on my new lava table and patio.
And here's a close-up of the passenger window of my blazer...as you can see, the ash is very coarse. It crunched as I walked across the driveway. I rubbed some between my fingers only to find that it had glass like qualities; very different than the soft, sand like ash that fell during the October 2002 eruption.

Of course, there was no threat to towns and the sun came up the next morning for all to bask in the glory that is Sicily (sorry, this a bit of an awkward shot...but I was driving).