Update, October 26, 2018: Volcanologist Erik Klemetti has a good blog post up about this volcano. Should we be worried? A resounding no, he says. At least not right now.

Original post:

Let’s all start practicing this new Icelandic name now, just in case this restless volcano does go off in our lifetimes!

Given Öræfajökull’s size and its history, an eruption could be bad (though you never know what a volcano is going to do until it does it).

There are a lot of gloom-and-doom videos and sites out there, but here are some online information sources I’ve found reliable:

• Icelandic Met Office
• The Smithsonian’s GVP page.
• Various posts by Dr. Erik Klemetti, including this one, and this.
• Jón Frímann Jónsson–an interesting though not expert lay source whom many of us online volcanophiles relied upon during the lead-in to the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjalljökull.
• London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) website. This should be the first place you check, if you want to know if Öræfajökull has really erupted. The link to Toulouse VAAC on this page is also helpful.

Featured image: Satellite image of Öræfajökull, showing cauldron of glacial meltwater in late 2017. Antti Lipponen, CC BY 2.0.