El Hierro Volcano Live (More Or Less)

Updated Nov. 12. See UPDATE 2. Expat was kind enough to send along a new webcam link in comments.

Updated Nov. 10. See UPDATE at the bottom of the page. It turns out that this really is a still image, not a live webcam. Maybe "tomorrow".

Another little wonder of the modern age, the La Restinga webcam on El Hierro Island near the volcanic disturbance there, demonstrates what's possible with an Internet connection and a little technology. Here's a vista of the village, with the boundary between the volcanic debris and the more-or-less clear ocean waters clearly visible:

Image credit: Screenshots of La Restinga webcam by Cujo359

There is a Google Maps insert that shows where the camera is pointed at any time:

I'm not sure how live this image is. It's about 2PM here in the Pacific time zone as I'm capturing these images. Presumably, it should be dark in the Canary Islands right now.

Still, in view of the Internet connectivity issues the webcam was having earlier, I'd suggest that if you don't have a good reason to monitor the situation you ought to just have a look, and then close the page. That way, someone else gets to enjoy the view.

(h/t Dana Hunter for pointing this out.)

UPDATE (Nov. 10): I grew even more suspicious that this was a stored image when I went to the webcam site this morning and saw the same image, right down to the same clouds being in the same places. Expat provides a quote from Earthquake Report's live blog of the volcano:

"Update 10/11 – 13:49 UTC:

- Some of our readers have just asked us to make it clear that the HD-Webcam @ La Restinga (http://www.ilovesantacruz.es/newweb/camara-web-situada-en-la-restinga/2011/11/) shows only a still panorama picture. Like we said already in our 13:42 update, El Hierro authorities are missing a great chance to promote the island. The webcam was promised to be functioning today, but … it remains a promise only. J… did her best to get it done, but she is more used to the “tomorrow” promise on this otherwise so peaceful island."

El Hierro Volcano (Canary Islands)

The link at the bottom of the quote is probably the best place to go for up to the minute news on the volcano. Since there are two people on site, there won't always be reports at any given time, but they seem to be as current as it gets, given that this is a small island with small population.

If you watch the static picture at that webcam site, though, you'll notice that the webcam has its own little solar power supply. It's clearly equipped to power itself. I suspect that what they need to do is set up communications between the camera and the nearest Internet service point, which may not be the nearby village.

The ideal setup would be a direct link from the camera to a computer that's in a safe location. The computer would store the images, and make sure that they were mirrored in enough places to handle the traffic.

Setting all that up would take a bit of time, but other than the onsite requirements of communications and possibly a computer, it's all in place already.

This would explain the delay in getting things operational. I'm sure it's not the only possible explanation, but it's one of them.

UPDATE 2 (Nov. 12): That webcam link still has a static image on it that is now at least three days old.

Expant sent along a comment with a new webcam link. That one appeared to be live yesterday. I haven't checked it yet this morning. I won't be able to update anymore, but since people are still arriving here looking for a webcam link, I thought I'd at least try to be helpful.

UPDATE 3: Just checked - the new webcam link still looks to be live. It's night right now in the Canary Islands, so it's hard to tell how good the images are.

At least this webcam page is getting that right. If you want to see what that area looks like on a nice sunny day, check the original webcam