Mount Redoubt produces cloud of haze

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, March 31 (UPI) -- Haze from Mount Redoubt drifted over southwestern Alaska Tuesday without disrupting airline schedules or posing a danger to residents, experts said.

Nate Hardin of the National Weather Service described the haze, which reached Anchorage more than 100 miles away, as a mix of steam and volcanic gas with dirt and dust mixed in, the Anchorage Daily News reported. He said that climactic conditions mean that the mixture is staying in place.

"A lot of that can get suspended in the air, so it's just a conglomerate of particulates in the atmosphere," Hardin said. "It may hang around for a little bit, but all it takes is a little something in the upper atmosphere to blow it out."

Redoubt began erupting more than a week ago. On Monday, Alaska Airlines canceled all service for several hours.

Also Monday, officials with the Cook Inlet Pipeline Co., the U.S. Coast Guard and the state held a news conference on the possible danger to an oil storage facility on the Drift River floodplain, 25 miles from the volcano. They said that flood waters and mud flows form Redoubt could cause an environmental disaster but, so far, a protective dike is working.