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Over the past 2 or 3 days I ahve noticed a marked increase in dust laying on my car. To prove the point I removed all of the dust on Saturday by washing the car and yesterday morning there was a noticable layer which has collected overnight.

I have also noted the same patterns of dust on my car left out overnight, since Friday. I live in the Yeovilton area.

It is here in Sawston, Cambridgeshire, dust settled overnight on Friday. It looked similar to the photos shown below (but with a slight yellow hue to it) and was on other cars. I washed the car last night to see if more settles, if it does I shall take some samples to work and have a look under the microscope.

Also, a banana went very black in our fruit bowl over the same night, increased oxidation effects by the sulphur in the air...or coincidence...

I have the same type of dust on my car in Hove Sussex.

i would like to know what is the difference between this dust and sand. Planes routinely fly through sand (looks like smog/fog on approach) into Gulf States and that seems 'save'. Another point....these tweo hour flight tests by BA and KLM are a bit useless and prove nothing...empty aircraft with engines not spooled up. There should by a 1000 hours of test flying through the layers of dust, and engine examinations every 250 hours. This could be done by ten aircarft over the nexct week or so. if all is well then open the skies.??

Saturday morning, my car parked outside on the drive outside our house in Didcot, Oxfordshire, was covered much as shown in the photographs above. It's dark grey in colour when a finger is used to wipe some of it off.

We had a second, much smaller, deposition of the dust before Sunday morning.

Watch out when you wash it off! Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, simi;ar ash on our parked cars in Oxshott Surrey, wiped some off and it was dark grey. Kept some on a sheet of white paper, and you can see glass particles shining in the sun (especially with a x10 handlens). Sunday more ash but changed colour to whiter or much paler grey.

Has anyone else experienced difficulty washing it off?? Check your paintwork afterwards, myriads of fine scratches, used loads of water, and a soaked sponge, very gingerly, but seems to damage paintwork very readily, I hope this polishes out later, but it certainly seems to be extremely abrasive material.

I'm presently typing while looking out my window at a distinctly grey (formerly white) Ford Escort in Medway. We've had that sort of dust on things around here for a couple of days now.

Until about Thursday or Friday, I had a nice looking dark blue Honda that now has an ash-brown coloured effect that appeared overnight. It will be getting a very careful and gentle rinse.

6. At 10:42am on 19 Apr 2010, Adrian JONES wrote:

Has anyone else experienced difficulty washing it off?? Check your paintwork afterwards, myriads of fine scratches, used loads of water, and a soaked sponge, very gingerly, but seems to damage paintwork very readily, I hope this polishes out later, but it certainly seems to be extremely abrasive material.

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I've been out with a garden hose on a low pressure setting. It washes off quite easily without trashing the paint work. (not that it matters on my old banger)

I had a slightly lighter coating of the dust on Sunday morning, and even lighter (barely visible) this morning, Monday 19th. West Gloucestershire, GL17 postcode.

WRT washing it off cars without scouring paintwork, try:

Here in Cardiff I've been noticing dusty deposits on my car since about Friday. I finally got myself sorted out to wash the car today, along with a couple of neighbours who were washing theirs, and it was really hard to wash off. It took repeated washings and rinsings, and I'm not entirely sure I got it all then. However, it'll probably need doing again tomorrow, so I decided to try not to worry about it too much!

And I can now unhappily report that three hours after washing the car it's got the same grey/red hue to it as it had this morning.

Waste of time that was eh?

Just to confirm we had small deposits noticiable on roof of car at about 10pm Last night aprox 1mm. It was also possible to see particles in air illuminated by a 500w Flood light.This was in Kidderminster Worcestershire at the following location 52" 21' 53.32 N, 2" 16' 25.68 W at an elevation of 73m

Dust on Saturday morning, maybe before, in the Haslemere area of South-West Surrey. Possibly more has fallen since, but I'm not that dedicated to washing my car so it's a little hard to judge.

Ian, can you tell us if rain could help with the aviation problem? We're getting rain today in Denmark, the first in quite a while. Can rain over European airspace wash some of the ash out and help clear things up? Thanks.

Tony Book asked about the difference between the ash and Gulf sand. I don't know about sand, but the ash contains glass, which melts in the jet engine, and then cools on to the turbine fan blades. This upsets the engine which then shuts down. Cooling the engine can result in the glass deposits breaking off, and then the engine can be restarted. This is what happened to a BA 747 in 1982 over Indonesia.

There was a good demo of the effect on Monday night's Bang Goes the Theory in ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ1.

Hi Ian, I live in Bucks, close to Heathrow, where it's been so quiet and eerie of late, and can confirm that I too, along with the rest of the population, have had ash deposits on my car since the weekend.

....and the sky is so blue today, you wouldn't think there was a problem in the world...

I also work in the aviation industry, and I'm proud of the way the industry has reacted to this. It has been such an unprecedented event, with regard to aviation, that no-one had any reference to work from, hence why this blanket-ban came into effect. We have some earlier isolated incidents to compare against, BA009 in 1982 for instance, and the KLM a few years later, but both of those were singularly different to this. The composition of the plume, as well as it's achieved altitude and how it was affected by weather are very different to other incidents.

I'm no fan of the current government, BUT, I'm pretty disappointed in those that seek to 'blame' the PM for this - what electorial bull. They are the same people who would be shouting for his resignation if one, just one, engine had failed and caused a plane to conduct an emergency landing, let alone anything worse.

Those that don't understand the logistical, planning and administrative challenges to operating an airline could do better by listening to those of us that do. We're not out of the woods yet!

We went for a meal in West Harptree last night (22/04/2010) and came out about 9p.m. and there was alayer of dust on all the cars. Could this have been volcanic ash?

I WOKE THIS MORNING AND MY WOODEN TABLE IN MY GARDEN WAS COVERED IN THICK ASH ALSO MY CHAIRS ANDPLANTS MY WINDOWS ALSO NEEDED A CLEAN THIS WAS IN DUNBAR ON THE EAST COAST SCOTLAND