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.

It sure looks

[Anonymous Coward]

It sure looks like a cloud was framed strategically behind the moutain to make the "steam" look like more than it was. I see some dark wisps, and then a big white plume that seems to start right at the top of the crater as if it were actually behind it.

Video of the "eruption"

[valkraider]

Here [koincom10-1-04helenswmv] is some cool video (Windows media, but VLC played it fine):

Theres one in Mexico also.

[bludstone]

Mexico's 'Fire Volcano' Erupts, No Evacuations Yet [go.com]

KABLOOEY!

Stock up on pantyhose

[PIPBoy3000]

When the last one hit, things like pantyhose were used to keep ash from destroying their engines [nwsource.com].

I live a couple hours south of Portland and we got only a light dusting after the first eruption. My wife lived further north and was cleaning ash off of cars for days.

Eruption

[Mark of THE CITY]

Supposedly this one may throw rock and ash up to 3 miles away. The Forest Service camera is 5 miles off, and the 1980 explosion threw ask over 250 miles.

I haven't been up there but did hike up Lassen Peak in 2000. Much of that area is still bare from the eruptions that occurred around 1915.

Re:Mild volcanic event happens on volcano

[Kethinov]

Most volcanos vent steam and gases. This is a non-story isn't it?

Most volcanos aren't sitting near densely populated areas in the United States.

From first hand account

[fawlty154]

I was fortunate to be within sixty miles of this explosion today, and I can say that it looked incredible in person.

Re:nothing to see here folks

[SocietyoftheFist]

I have a relative that was sitting at the dining table eating breakfast and looking out his window right at the volcano as it erupted in 1980. Now that would've been something to see.

neat-o

[recharged95]

Geologically, this is fascinating. For the last few weeks, high concentration of hurricanes (on both coasts), a few earthquakes (on both coasts), now dual volcano events. I wonder if the collection and fusion of all this data is gonna identify that some global event happened within the environment?

The past may have had extreme natural events similarly, but were they so "focused" like in the last 3 months?

Maybe the earth had to reboot itself due to some Y2K issue?

This isn't it

[Teahouse]

Ring of fire activity is up all around the ring. From Japan to Mexico to California, there is a lot of seismic and volcanic activity still going on. St. Helens is just a symptom of something else. I am betting something big happens in the next 3 months. Either an inactive volcano blows, or there's a big EQ in the ring, but something is going to happen. 6.2 in Mexico, 6.0 in California, 7.2 in Japan, St. Helens burps, small quake activity in Alaska and the cascades is up, and Hawaii is looking at Mauna Loa going very active. All of this within the last month, and all of it unusial. I doubt this burp from St' Helens is going to be the total end result.

Re:It sure looks

[identity0]

Well, it'd be pretty hard to pre-position yourself to get such a shot, unless you were in an airplane.... trust me, volcanoes can regularly send out clouds that big.

For comparison, look at These pics [und.edu] of a volcano in Japan I used to live near. The pics show ash not steam, so it's a different color but you get the idea. The ash cloud would regularly blanket the nearby cities like a fog, and settle on everything. Keep in mind there was a major city across the bay about 3km away, about as far as Bremerton is from Seattle.

I'm suprised that a volcano like St. Helens only does that much ash and steam, to be honest.

Re:This isn't it

[KKin8or]

Yes. Hawaii is just a "hot spot."

Japan's earthquakes and volcanoes are part of the Pacific plate's subduction zone.

California has earthquakes because of the pacific plate sliding along the north american plate (heading up toward Japan...).

The pacific northwest has volcanoes and earthquakes because it's the subduction zone for the plate of Juan de Fuca.

Hawaii, however, is in the middle of the pacific plate. Like Yellowstone, it's just a small place with some volcanic activity unrelated to plate tectonics (though the movement of the hotspot, creating the chain of islands, is probably related to plate tectonics).

Hurrah for intro Geology... ;)

...and snow boots, and shovels, and...

[coolerthanmilk]

My wife lived in Mossyrock, WA at the time of the big eruption. Too close for comfort. Her strongest memories from that time are

• Being in Morton when it blew and having to return home - toward the volcano - while the eruption was occurring. There was ash, including firey bits as she describes it, falling all around as they drove home. Sounds like hell's equivalent of a snowstorm.
  
• Wearing snow boots for weeks to go anywhere, particularly school, and trudging through all the ash.
  
• Checking out the tracks left by insects in the ash as they wandered about.
  
• Thinking everyone she knew who lived elsewhere was nuts for thinking it was cool to collect ash that had fallen from the volcano, or even worse, buying it as a memento. It was everywhere, who could possibly want it?
  

I'd go for the snowboot and shovel markets if I was there, I think. That and selling the ash to those living too far away to be blessed by it's falling in their yard.

As for me, I thought it was so cool that I had a small bag of Mt St Helens ash I purchased with a photo of the eruption. I'm not sure if I've ever shared that little nugget of info with her.

Slashdot helps me not have to go outside

[RC_Car]

I probably would have never known about this if I hadn't read about it here on Slashdot. I need to look outside more often since Mount St. Helens is in viewable range of my window.