Today (May 18, 2010) is the 30th anniversary of the big eruption of Mt St Helens, in Washington state, about 100 miles from Portland, Oregon.

My memories of that are very vivid, and while nature has been busy regenerating a lot of vegetation, the area is still nowhere what it was back then in terms of the size of trees and forests.   And the mountain is still active, with smaller eruptions in the process of rebuilding the dome that went up in smoke and ash back in 1980, after being built up for about 100 years.

With the Icelandic volcano wreaking such havoc on European and other international air travel, it's worth noting that if the winds had been blowing in some other directions on that morning in 1980, there could have been pretty big disruptions of air travel then too. As it was, when St Helens dumped ash on the highways that spring, it caused major disruptions and accidents, etc. And 57 people died as a direct result of the ash and/or the flooding that quickly ensued after the eruption.

Oregon Public Broadcasting is running a very good special about that eruption today.