This was in today's Local Italy:
"Mount Etna, one of the world's most active volcanoes, belched smoke and ashes in a new eruption on Monday, forcing the temporary closure of the airport of Catania in Sicily."
It could be cause for a temporary change in travel plans in and out of Catania.
Marsie, this seems to happen pretty often. It did on our RS Sicily tour, and we had to make an expensive taxi ride to Palermo early in the morning to catch a flight out of there to get home. It depends on which way the wind is blowing. The ash can damage airplane engines so if wind is blowing in direction of airport, they shut it down. We were checking it hourly on day before our departure.
Interestingly, the locals take it in stride, even speaking warmly about "Mama Etna". Despite long lines at the Catania airport, they had a pretty efficient process of re-booking flights for stranded passengers, even across airlines.
