By the way, we’re all going to die!

Yellowstone is rumbling.

Plume’s Path
(Alan Sullivan, Fresh Bilge, 2 Jan 2009)

If Yellowstone volcano produced a major eruption plume — a very remote possibility, but one worth considering at the moment — where would it go? A really big eruption could drop ash thousands of miles from the source, but upper winds at the time of the eruption would determine which way the plume might track. Here is the GFS 16-day time-lapse model of winds at the 250 mb level — roughly the boundary between troposphere and stratosphere. It might prove useful. Even Florida will be downwind of Yellowstone at times during the next two weeks, as the jet stream flexes and pulses.

(via Instapundit)

More recent stuff from Sullivan here.

Chances of a major eruption are or course actually very remote, but Yellowstone is worth watching because it is one of those “supervolcanos” that have a habit of every few hundred thousand years erupting in a way that dwarfs “normal” volcanic eruptions and sometimes effect continent sized areas. The last time Yellowstone erupted was 640,000 years ago or so.

Anyway, Yellowstone is rumbling right now, with a “swarm” of Earthquakes indicating movement of the subterranean magma. Fun!