What height and type of flights does the Katla volcano ash cloud affect?

I hear the ash cloud might reach easter Canada.



Pretending it does, what is the altitude "range" that the ashes affect?



Does it ground all flights? Or just high-altitude flights?



I have a flight schedule this week but it's only a low altitude regional 2 hour flight.What height and type of flights does the Katla volcano ash cloud affect?
It is not the Katla volcano but the Eyjafjallajokull one that has erupted. The former one is much bigger and while we fear it might also blow up, it hasn't done it yet.



The problem with this types of volcanoes that are under a glacier is that, when the blow up, they melt the glacier. This creates a column of steam that rises very high, up to the tropopause that is roughly 10 km of altitude, at that latitude. This is pretty much the same as a thunderstorm does.



Canada is not directly in danger because the main wind direction is south-westerly, along the low pressures moving with the jet streams. You are upstream of that system. Yet, air moves in many directions and since the ash can remains for weeks in the air, some may simply turn around the north pole and come back toward Canada, from west to east.



Your regional 2 hours flight will be at the same altitude as all of the others, 30,000 ft or around that. The reason airplanes go that high is that they are optimized to be most efficient at that altitude. It is a compromise between the energy needed to climb that high and the gain of having less drag from a thinner air.



The volcanic ash affects all the layers as some come down with the rain and in a high pressure region. The only safe place to fly would be on the top of everything if there is no ash at both the points of departure and arrival. As I understand it, some European airline companies are trying that at this very moment. Right now, we are talking about flying at 35,000 ft or Flight Level 350 as it is called in aviation.



PS: Eyjafjallajokull means, the glacier (jokull) of the mountain (fjalla) Eyja. Icelandic is nothing else than old Norwegian.