BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 11:55 AM

That's what I saw, too, McGrath. Wondering if it spewed some more?

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 11:50 AM

Totally grey screen. It's either a whole lot of smoke, or maybe it's just a heavy mist.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 11:16 AM

Stand in the path of a volcano, but run from a rainfall?? LOL!! Hmmmm....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 11:13 AM

nice cloud/fog/something. grey.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: JenEllen
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 11:08 AM

It's chilly and supposed to be rainy (off'n'on) all day here today. Weather service is thinking maybe it will chase some of the bozos off the mountain. I doubt it. These are the same people who brought both their kids AND their gas masks. Smarts ain't what they's known fer.
~JE

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 10:46 AM

The cloud I'm looking at now seems to be IN the crater. Not that that couldn't happen. It sorta would be nice to be able to zoom out a bit, or find another webcam a wider shot, but I already spend too much time watching the earth fart.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 10:13 AM

seems to be clouds in the picture right now rather then steam or "smoke"

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 07:21 PM

so... SRS... do I finally get to take you out to dinner? Or are you all booked up while you're up here in the misty moist?

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 07:04 PM

Yes, it is! The photo seems to load better now. But let's hope the mountain behaves with restraint--I'm flying up there in a couple of days and don't want to be rerouted via Hawaii. (That is, unless I have to get out and spend several days in Hawaii. . . )

The trip is last minute and spontaneous. I found a round trip ticket from Dallas to Seattle for $122. Wow! Someone down here has suggested that maybe the price indicates the dearth of flying passengers now that St. Helens has taken up smoking again. :) I figure that I can keep an eye on it up until the time to depart, and check again before I fly to Denver before Seattle. In the two hours from Denver to Seattle, what are the odds that the mountain will do something catastrophic (don't answer that!)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 06:55 PM

Really smoking now!

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: open mike
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 03:08 PM

yes that was it..the Kraffts. here is what a search for them finds:
"Saw a TV documentary on volcanoes and pyroclastic flows a few months ago. Part of the program referred to a scientist who was killed when trying to photograph a pyroclastic flow as it was rushing down towards him...Maurice and Katya Krafft. They, and about 20 others were killed by a pyroclastic flow on Mt. Unzen in Japan." I did not realize that 20
other people lwere involved in teh same incident, too!

from a promo script for Nat'l Geographic Mountains fo fire:
http://www.jeffreyleehollis.com/mountains2copy.html

"The documentary National Geographic's Volcano was an hour-long National Geographic documentary relating the story of volcanologists Katya and Maurice Krafft as they pursue the study of active volcanic eruptions at numerous sites worldwide. '

interview with vulcanologist couple the Kraffts--published posthumously

Pele Dancing photo by Katya Krafft...for sale memorial benefit
the Kraffts produced an educational video about volcano risks..
anhd this stunning photo is for sale..the proceeds benefit educational efforts...at least copoies were available at one time...

http://www.swvrc.org/updates.htm

latest report says mt. st. helens had erupted..

see hereA:

http://www.swvrc.org/cerupt.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 02:16 PM

I have difficulty in getting the photo to reload. Just hitting the refresh button doesn't work. I have to open a new browser window.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: MMario
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 01:49 PM

cloud almost gone at this point. I wonder if there is any relation to the position of the moon?

I know I've only had a two day sample - but it almost seems to be a tidal pattern.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 12:37 PM

Looking quite exciting now. Starting to boil over...

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 12:33 PM

The redness is possibly due to weather conditions and lighting, but it sure looks ominous. By the way, I saved yesterdays images, and I'm saving today's. Yes, I know I'm weird.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 12:24 PM

It also appears there's more pressure behind it, and the base of the cloud's bigger.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: MMario
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 12:19 PM

yup - a wee bit different then this morning! Much thicker cloud then when I watched yesterday too...

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 12:17 PM

There seems to be something happening now. Just more steam, probably.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: GUEST,Skarpi Iceland.
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 11:55 AM

Halló , i had to go away from my home 1973 becouse of an Eruption
In Vestmannaisland, and i have not a happy memory about that event.
So people watch out this is a danger, go away from it as far as you can mother nature does not give any change.
All the best Skarpi Iceland.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: HuwG
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 09:57 AM

open mike, the French volcanologist couple you may be thinking of were Maurice and Katya Krafft. They were killed by a pyroclastic flow on Mt. Unzen in Japan in 1991. (As they had done before, they had positioned themselves on the flank of the predicted path of the flow, but they were taken unawares by an unexpected collapse of the lava dome and a change in the wind direction.)

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: open mike
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 02:24 AM

i live a couple of hours away from Lassen Natl Park Volcanic Area.
which erupted in 1914 Lassen National Park Volcano..northern California and on the other side of me is a plateau which was formed by a lava flow....Table Mountain.
http://www.calphoto.com/clpc/table.pdf
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/lands/articles/notablemt00.html
In Oregon there is a huge lave flow -- an Obsidian deposit. which the natives used for arrow heads...
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/centraloregon/newberrynvm/index.shtml
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Newberry/Locale/framework.html

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: open mike
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 02:01 AM

on npr all things considered today there was a radio report with details of a USGS project (Geological Service) telling about a GPS and siesmic weather station that got blown away by a steam venting incident, and a team of sepcialists landed a helicopter, ever so briefly on the rim of the volcano to replace it with a new weather station....how would you like to be on that team??
radio story here...audio link
i think that 5-10 years ago a couple of vulcanologists perished
while studying a volcano..it seems as if it might have been in
the southern hemisphere...i donot remember their names but they
routinely wore asbestos suits in order to go into areas that were
much too hot to stand without protection and places with deadly vapors
also. any one remember this couple's names? they might have been French.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: dianavan
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 11:51 PM

I know Mt. St. Helens well. I was born in Kelso. She was 'our' mountain. She was also called 'Fire Mountain'. Spirit lake was a favorite place and my aunt had a horse ranch on the Toutle River.

When she blew, I was sleeping in my peaceful, B.C. island home. I jumped out of bed and screamed, "What was that?" I ran to the radio and turned it on. When I heard that Spirit Lake had filled with lava and was no more, my knees went out from under me.

I had no idea that I was so connected to that mountain until then. I still wonder at the impact it had on me from so far away. I guess you tend to think that something that big has some kind of permanence. Was I ever wrong! It actually felt like my world was slipping away.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 10:55 PM

When Baker was threatening to erupt they closed the Baker River side of things all the way down the mountain. I wonder if I still have any of those old Forest Service maps with the red zone? They might be collector's items. Baker had a warm lake at the top for a while. It's kind of flat up there on Sherman Peak, and it melted in the middle of it. They were afraid all of that warm water would melt glaciers and bring a wall of mud and rock and water down on the Skagit Valley. At the time it was a serious threat. How soon we forget!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Jeri
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 08:13 PM

Sorcha, it seems like she's calm most of the time, but the pressure builds and she lets loose. I just picked the right time to watch earlier today.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: mg
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 07:58 PM

oh shoot. I was going to Mount Hood in a couple of weeks. Of course they are all related.....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 06:37 PM

I've been watching the cam Jeri posted.....not much activity for the last hour....maybe she has decided to calm down?

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 06:35 PM

I haven't seen that particular one, but a couple of years ago, Nova ran a series of programs on the Ring of Fire.
I guess terra firma ain't so firma after all!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Benjamin
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 06:03 PM

Mt. Saint Helens has been pretty active since it's eruption. You can see inside the crator that it has been building up a new peak. Interestingly enough, that peak contained the only glacier in the world that was growing, instead of receding. It looks like the new peak to the Moutain won't last too long.
Don, if you haven't yet seen the IMAX film on the Ring of Fire, I highly recomend it.
Benjamin

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 05:44 PM

Mt. St. Helens popped her cork at 8:32 a.m. PDT on May 18th, 1980. I was working at the telephone company as an operator at the time. In fact, I plugged into the board at 8:30, just two minutes before she blew.

Bulletins went out on the radio and on television asking people to stay the hell off the telephone lines because they were needed for emergency calls. But that didn't stop them. Within half an hour after the news went out that the mountain had erupted, the phone lines were jammed. No calls could get through. There were about fifty operators in Unit 5 at the time, and our boards were inundated with people complaining that their calls wouldn't go through and asking for operator assistance. Almost all of these calls were in the nature of "How are things out your way, Aunt Martha?" Real crucial! Genuine emergency calls simply couldn't get through, and there was not a damned thing we could do. I think these people probably have about the same number of brain cells as the people who want to climb up the mountainside and peer down her throat when an eruption is imminent. Or the people who walk out and examine tidal pools when the water recedes prior to the arrival of a tsunami.

Interesting to note that the mountain is behaving almost exactly the same way it did prior to the May 18, 1980 eruption. They keep saying that they're not expecting anything that big this time, but. . . .

When Mt. Baker, east of Bellingham, Washington, started rumbling and venting steam somewhat prior to Mt. St. Helens stealing Baker's thunder (so to speak), an interesting bumper sticker began to appear on Bellingham. It said, "Vote No on Mt. Baker Eruption!" Shortly thereafter, the rumbling and venting subsided.

Whoa! As I sit here at the computer listening to my marvelous Tom Swift electric radio, I hear that they have just recorded an earthquake under Mt. St. Helens' close neighbor, Mt. Hood. The geologists are saying that there is no relation, but hey! Both mountains are in the Cascade chain, and they're part of the so-called "Ring of Fire" that encircles the Pacific rim. How can they NOT be related?

Fasten your seat belts.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 05:24 PM

We had a LOT of fallout ash in Wyoming when it blew last time. It was so bad, they told folks with heart and respiratory problems to stay inside and our cars were coated with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: GUEST,amergin
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 05:19 PM

I was only 5 when it blew. I do remember going to Spokane for an air show at Fairchilds Air Force Base where my uncle was stationed. It turned black as night.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 04:50 PM

Neat, Jeri...I marked it! That's as close as I want to be too!

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 04:49 PM

from what I read, Mt. Ranier is best watched closely for you guys out there. There is one small town that practices evacuation on a regular basis.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 04:21 PM

Maggie, My family knew Harry Truman well. At the time the mountain blew, my brother was negoiating with him to buy his famous pink cadillac. They never found hid body, but I think he died happy. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 04:07 PM

They're the same ones who stand on the beach to watch a tidal wave--this is Darwin's answer to defective "common sense" genes.

There was an old guy who refused to leave his home on the mountain in the first eruption--Harry Truman. One hopes his death was fast and painless. Many of the others who died in the first eruption probably weren't so lucky. Only fools intentionally get so close to something that big, hoping they live a charmed life.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: MMario
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 03:30 PM

so someone should tell that to the people in the helichopper buzzing by.

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 03:28 PM

Once you've seen and felt and heard and tasted a mountain blow it's top, you've seen 'em all. I actually climbed to the summit of that mountain in 1960, 20 years before she blew. She's just hiccupping now and probably will for months to come. But to those of us that went through the May of 1980 explosion, we don't have to be told twice to get the heck out of there. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 02:36 PM

When St. Helens blew in 1981, it was a remarkable thing. (There were a number of blows, by the way, but just one magor one.) I was going to school in Portland at the time and you wouldn't believe the grit- pumice on bushes, cars, walkways, window casings. It was stuck on everything.

My brother's family lived just 30 miles from the mountain on a small farm, and they found themselves in their pasture at 3 o'clock in the morning to bring the cows in so they wouldn't feed on the cement-consistency slop.

Later, when the ash blew, I remember the car filters, the airplane rerouteings, the news reports...

I actually "saw" the top of the mountain blow off, even though I was about 70 miles away. I saw the force field in the sky, I guess. I was driving over the top of an overpass on the Sunday morning when I looked north just in time to see the sky shiver violently, you might say. When I got home, my daughter met me with the news that it said on the radio that the mountain had just blown.

I think we all had visions of how it must have been at Pompei!

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 01:52 PM

That's as close to it as I want to get. I was watching this news bulletin with al these rubberneckers trying to get as close to it as they could...

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 01:41 PM

She's gonna blow, Jim!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 01:36 PM

That's one of the parks I'd have really enjoyed working at, but silly me, I turned it down to stay with the (now ex) boyfriend-later-hubby in Texas. The subsequent kids were worth the career detour, but that park would have been a great place to use the skills picked up all over the country. I was a mountain climbing naturalist with an earlier forestry background who had worked in caves and geologically active areas--that's the first job offer where the supervisor called back later to ask if I was really sure that I didn't want to go there to work. [sigh]

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: MMario
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 01:17 PM

poor helen - she gets a sniffle and the whole world watrches her blow her nose!

Subject: BS: Mount St. Helens - Volcano Watchers
From: Jeri
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 01:15 PM

For those interested in such things, there's the USDA Forest Service's Webcam, updated every 5 minutes or so. I've been watching it, and though it was pretty quiet less than an hour ago, there is a great cloud of stuff coming out of it at the moment.

More interesting than watching paint dry, but I hope everybody got out of there!