The Institute of Vulcanology warned that the eruption could intensify with ash rising as high as 1000 to 2000 metres, posing a threat to air traffic at Guatemala's international airport.

"Ash could spread over Guatemala City due to the direction of the wind," the country's disaster response office said in a statement.

The last major eruption of Pacaya, in May 2010, claimed the life of a television journalist, drove thousands of people from their homes and forced the closure of the Guatemala City airport for five days.

The 2552 metre-high Pacaya is 50 kilometres south of the capital and one of three active volcanoes in Guatemala.

Around 1250 A.D., historical records show, ice packs began showing up farther south in the North Atlantic. Glaciers also began expanding on Greenland, soon to threaten Norse settlements on the island. From 1275 to 1300 A.D., glaciers began expanding more broadly, according to radiocarbon dating of plants killed by the glacier growth. The period known today as the Little Ice Age was just starting to poke through.

Summers began cooling in Northern Europe after 1300 A.D., negatively impacting growing seasons, as reflected in the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317. Expanding glaciers and ice cover spreading across Greenland began driving the Norse settlers out. The last, surviving, written records of the Norse Greenland settlements, which had persisted for centuries, concern a marriage in 1408 A.D. in the church of Hvalsey, today the best preserved Norse ruin.

Colder winters began regularly freezing rivers and canals in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Northern France, with both the Thames in London and the Seine in Paris frozen solid annually. The first River Thames Frost Fair was held in 1607. In 1607-1608, early European settlers in North America reported ice persisting on Lake Superior until June. In January, 1658, a Swedish army marched across the ice to invade Copenhagen. By the end of the 17th century, famines had spread from northern France, across Norway and Sweden, to Finland and Estonia.

Reflecting its global scope, evidence of the Little Ice Age appears in the Southern Hemisphere as well. Sediment cores from Lake Malawi in southern Africa show colder weather from 1570 to 1820. A 3,000 year temperature reconstruction based on varying rates of stalagmite growth in a cave in South Africa also indicates a colder period from 1500 to 1800. A 1997 study comparing West Antarctic ice cores with the results of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two (GISP2) indicate a global Little Ice Age affecting the two ice sheets in tandem.

According to predictions of the French Canal Meteo, there is a 70% chance of a complete absence of summer in Western Europe this year, making it one of the coldest and wettest summers since 1816 - almost 200 years.

This would occur because this year's long, late winter has cooled the ocean, which, coupled with weak solar activity in recent months, could have a direct effect on the climate.

The last time this happened was in 1816, known as the "year without a summer" or "the year of poverty." At that time the sun was in the midst of the Dalton Minimum, when magnetic activity was extremely low, and Tambora volcano erupted in Indonesia with a column of smoke so thick that it caused a decline in world temperatures.

It's been a cold 2013 so far in Central and Western Europe. Last weekend snow fell in Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
Europeans are wondering whatever happened to global warming. Climate institutes, who just years ago predicted warm, snow-less winters, have turned 180° and are now insisting that the Little Ice Age-like conditions that have gripped Europe over the last 5 years are actually signs of global warming after all! Fortunately, very few people believe them.

If you've been looking forward to spending your Spanish summer sunning yourself by the pool, don't pack away your winter clothes just yet.

France's main weather channel has announced that there is a 70 percent chance of this summer being cold and wet across Spain, France, Portugal, Germany and Austria.

Cold maritime fronts and weak solar activity during the winter months have not only given us a chillier Spanish spring than normal, they're also going to make the summer months unusually dreary and rainy.

According to Meteo, June and July are only likely to have short periods of summer heat which will in turn bring heavy storms in August.

September and October are likely to register higher average temperatures and less rain, the French weather agency announced on Monday.

The year without summer, 1816, is not an old wives' tale.

Overcast skies and cold temperatures across the northern hemisphere led to severe crop failures and food shortages in France, England, Ireland and the US during the summer months of that year.

The National Guard has helped evacuate residents from a small community in Alaska's interior where a river ice jam caused major flooding, washing out roads and submerging homes and other buildings. State officials estimate several hundred people have left the town of Galena, which remained mostly underwater Tuesday with the Yukon River ice jam firmly in place, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
National Weather Service meteorologist Christopher Cox said 90 percent of the community's roads were flooded, and many buildings had 7 feet of water in them. Some of the people who were displaced said they escaped in rafts battered by ice chunks and floating debris.

After rising floodwaters breached a wall protecting the Galena airport, the National Guard flew in to evacuate any remaining residents who wanted to leave the community of nearly 500, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Evacuee Shane Edwin stepped off a flight to Fairbanks on Tuesday afternoon and described the scene he left behind as "a whole bunch of chaos." "The roads are all gone," he said. "The houses are flipped over. It's just trashed. I couldn't grab anything, not even my ID. The water came so fast."

Additional images

Tropical Storm Barbara gained strength on its approach to Mexico's southern coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday. The center reported that the storm was nearing hurricane strength with maximum sustained winds of 65 miles (105 km) per hour and was located about 70 miles (112 km) south of the port of Salina Cruz in southern Oaxaca state.
Salina Cruz is home to Mexican state oil monopoly Pemex's largest refinery. Barbara churned northeast at about eight miles per hour, and is expected to swing through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico's narrowest point, once it makes landfall later on Wednesday.

The center issued a hurricane warning from Oaxaca's Puerto Angel to Barra de Tonala, and a tropical storm warming from Barra de Tonala to Boca de Pijijiapan in Chiapas state.

Barbara is forecast to reach hurricane strength before it hits Mexico's southern coast, the center added.

Between 4 and 12 inches (10 to 30 cm) of rain is expected over eastern Oaxaca through western Chiapas once Barbara reaches land, along with a storm surge of between 3 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 meters) above normal tide levels.

The sinkhole in downtown Washington will continue to block lanes and impede traffic until the end of the work week, officials said Tuesday.

Authorities shut down parts of 14th and F streets in Northwest Washington last week after a pit opened at the intersection, which is blocks from the White House and in an area full of restaurants and hotels.

The work is taking so long because workers digging down to the sewer line have to navigate a complex thicket of utility lines and old trolley tracks, according to George S. Hawkins, general manager of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority.

"It's been the most complicated street repair I've seen since I've been on the job," Hawkins said at a news conference in front of the sinkhole.

Work at the pit could cost nearly $2 million, Hawkins said.

Event Time:
2013-05-29 03:16:23 UTC
2013-05-29 03:16:23 UTC+00:00 at epicenter

Location:
52.995°N 5.220°W depth=9.9km (6.2mi)

Nearby Cities:
48km (30mi) W of Nefyn, United Kingdom
52km (32mi) SW of Holyhead, United Kingdom
55km (34mi) E of Wicklow, Ireland
58km (36mi) ESE of Greystones, Ireland
80km (50mi) ESE of Dublin, Ireland

Technical Data