Once Again, Dubai Rings In New Year With Incredible Fireworks, Light Show

The annual Dubai New Year's celebration centered on the
Burj Khalifa skyscraper.  

I didn't think the Gulf Arab emirate of Dubai could top the fireworks display it put on when they rang in 2014 a year ago, but I was wrong.

Dubai did even better in 2015.

And you thought you rang in 2015 in style.

Once again, Dubai used the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, the world's tallest building, as the centerpiece of its fireworks display, which spread out through most of the emirate during the celebration to ring in 2015.

Forbes magazine sets the scene for us in  an article written just before this year's eye popping event:

"While it won't be easy to top last year's extravagaza, which smashed the Guinness World Record for largest-ever fireworks display with nearly 500,000 shells fired in just six minutes, Dubai is nonetheless poised to give it the ol' college try.

According to local reports, the Burj Khalifa.......will be swathed in an LED screen (quite possibly the world's largest) as part of six-part firework, laser and light show that will set downtown Dubai ablaze (visually speaking) creating a spectacle, that, in the city's signature show-stopping style, will use the world's most advanced pyrotechnics and LED-illumination technology.

The Telegraph of London has helpfully provided a nine minute video of the entire Dubai spectacle

Things really start to get good about two minutes into the video:

Don't Swim In This Lake In Iceland: Really Awesome Boiling Lava

Iceland's Bardabunga volcano has been a source
of amazing photos and videos since it
started erupting in August.  

Somebody last week took a helicopter over the Bardabunga volcano in Iceland, which has been erupting since August 31.

The volcano, for all its danger, has been an incredible source of amazing photographs and videos, and another great one has just come out from that helicopter trip.

The video shows various aspects of what's going on with the volcano, but I especially love the huge, boiling, roiling lava lake.

Yeah, it's chilly in Iceland, but I don't think that's the kind of lake anyone would want to smooth their cold muscles in.

The volcano has affected a 28 square mile area of Iceland. It could still belch ash to disrupt international flights, and it could melt glaciers in the region to produce dangerous floods.

For now, though, it's just amazing. Watch the video for yet another example among many of the power of nature:

Watch What Happens When You Fly A Drone Into A Volcano

An image from a Drone and GoPro
trip into the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland.  

The Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland is still erupting spectacularly, so a couple of guys decided to fly a drone as close as they could to the spouting lava to get a good look.

(As an aside, I think "Bardarbunga" is an excellent name for a volcano, or anything for that matter.)

Anyway, you'll see the video they took below. The two guys were Eric Cheng, of DJI Phantom, which makes the drone they used. Photographer Ragnar Sigurdsson attached a GoPro camera to the drone.

The whole account, in Wired, of what happened is pretty cool.  Cheng managed to get the drone faithfully back from the volcano, despite radio transmission problems caused by the volcano.

It turns out the heat from the lava melted and destroyed the GoPro camera, but the memory card for the camera was intact, so they got the video.

The two men got closer to the volcano than local officials wanted them to, because it was so dangerous The day after they were there, a caldera wall in the volcano collapsed, suddenly flooding the spot they were standing with a flash flood of hot lava.

Yikes!

Here's the wild video, h/t Gizmodo.

OK, Well-Planned Fireworks CAN Be Better Than Spectacular Mishaps

In an earlier post, I said that often, fireworks displays that get totally screwed up are often more fun than ones that go well.

Fireworks in Dubai. 

But not always. I ran across a video of the Dubai New Year's Eve fireworks display that appears to have gone off without a hitch.

The fireworks involved about 500,000 pyrotechnics launched from 400 different locations along 60 miles of coastline. It took 100 computers and 200 technicians to make it all work.

This whole production is going into the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest fireworks display on record.

And it really is something to see. Here's the portion of the display launched from the Burj Khalifa building, the tallest skyscraper in the world. Surrounding, smaller skyscrapers played supporting roles.