Mount St. Helens Lets Off Some Steam

jdray writes "The cube farm is all a twitter right now, as Mt. St. Helens is spewing out a steam plume, and you can see if from our building. The cam for the volcano seems to be down, but we just saw a news helicopter from KATU, one of our local news stations, headed that direction. They should have some content up shortly." Other readers suggest: KOIN, KOIN webcams, Kiro TV, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, or CNN.

Re:nothing to see here folks

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. As someone who lives in the Northwest, I've said all along that nothing was going to happen. What has happened today is no more exciting than what happens with the geiser in yellostone - and THAT does it all day.

Really. People need to calm the fuck down. Especially those news hound fags.

Probably not as big

[Mark of THE CITY]

The last big blast cleared about a cubic mile of rock out of the way. Pressures this time won't build as high as a result.

Re:nothing to see here folks

[erick99]

The scientists who monitor the volcano seem to feel that an eruption is fairly likely:.

All Things Considered, September 30, 2004. Researchers upgrade the chance of a mild to moderate volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens to 70 percent -- possibly within the next few days.

. . . and . . .

Day to Day, September 30, 2004 Scientists in Washington state are predicting an eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano in the next few days. NPR's Noah Adams talks with Dan Dzurisin of the U.S. Geologic Survey about the activity brewing under the surface of the already-shattered mountain, which was the scene of a massive surprise eruption in 1980.

. . . and . . .

ASSOCIATED PRESS On Wednesday, U.S.G.S. scientists warned that a small or moderate blast from the southwest Washington mountain could spew ash and rock as far as 3 miles from the 8,364-foot peak.

I live on the east coast so I can only go by reports from the scientists that are out on the west coast. I don't think that folks should get alarmed to the point that they become shrill or panic-stricken. However, it does seem reasonably likely that there will be some sort of eruption though all of the scientists, so far, say nothing near the 1980 eruption.

Re:The real truth

[Professr3]

What?? Peter Jackson followed them in? Horrors! I guess he wanted to get some good shots before they got toasted... Talk about some hazard pay for the actors.

Re:If we're lucky...

[G00F]

Actually, LA and san fran, and if both go, it will clean up the a lot of the mess today. (riaa, mpaa, holywood, and just plain scummy cities)

The rest of cali is worlds better.

Good to see the system work

[lpangelrob2]

It's good to see this 'trial run' work the way it's supposed to for the time when something bigger and more dangerous threatens. The ability of the USGS to monitor, detect, and predict volcano eruptions probably means that threats like the 70,000+ casualty disaster of Krakatoa and 25,000+ casualty disaster of Pompeii will probably not happen here.

If people in the Ring of Fire areas get as much lead time as people in Florida do about hurricanes, there should be no reason for a large amount of fatalities due to predictable volcanic activity... except maybe that Tacoma doesn't have an evacuation plan in case Mt. Ranier goes. I'm not sure what the probability is of unpredictable, sudden, catatsrophic volcanic activity, though.

Re:neat-o

[aafiske]

Probably more a testament to human beings' ability (or lack thereof) to comprehend randomness. We love finding patterns in things, but sometimes stuff just happens at the same time. How often is there a bad Hurricane season? How often are there earthquakes and volcanoes? It's obviously not common for these things to coincide a lot (otherwise it'd happen every other year) but I doubt it's that rare.

Re:Please let this die!

[valkraider]

There are many of us here in OR state (Thats OR-IH-GUN for those of you elsewhere) that are NOT sick and tired of hearing about Mt. Saint Helens!

No one is panicking, it is just kinda cool. Of course I also think it is neat when it rains, and I like lightning storms and even forest fires... Even the recent hurricaines I found fascinating. If you don't like it, don't read!

Mount Hood next?

[jd]

According to KATU [katu.com], Mount Hood has been experiencing a number of quakes for some years now. The chances of an eruption over the next few decades is put at 1:15 to 1:30.

Mount Hood is awfully big. Obviously, it'd depend on the size of the explosion, but the potential exists for something that would make Mount St. Helen's 1980 event look like something mild.

Despite comments by other posters on this, before, I can't help but feel that the Cascades affect each other. Even if there is no direct connection, the mere proximity means that the internal structure of each volcano may be affected by earthquakes caused by the others.

Mount Hood hasn't (so far) had a major increase in pressure build-up. However, isn't it within the realms of possibility that the Mount St. Helens quakes may block vents, compress the magma, etc? Sure, the shock waves haven't been big (so far), but that's relative. It might not take a whole lot to set Mount Hood off.

The Cascades are part of the so-called "Ring of Fire", which is a massive chain of volcanos. KATU talked about it having 3/4s of all the volcanos on Earth. That's a lot. I don't know if this Mexican volcano that's also gone off is also part of the Ring, but if it is, I (for one) would be very much in favour of increased monitoring over the whole of the Ring. Things seem a little too active, right now, and it probably isn't sensible to just sit back and wait.

Even if the probability of any further eruptions in the near future are extremely low, and even if the probability of either of these events triggering further volcanic activity elsewhere is minimal, it might be prudent to make sure of that.