It wasn't until I looked at the date I had written in the post below that I remembered.
Today is the anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, 29 years ago.
It is still active today, and if the weather is clear, you can see it "live", via the Mt. St. Helens VolcanoCam. I just checked and saw nothing but gray... must be in the clouds.
I remember our house shaking from the concussion of the blast, although - fortunately - no ash came this way. What you can't see, in the famous photo, is that a huge portion of the mountain on the left (north) side has been completely blown away.
6 comments:
Wow, you could feel the blast?
I remember mid-afternoon, Dad and I were out by the corral, doing something with the horses, looking west across the valley, and seeing the cloud approaching. Dad said that there must be a bad thunderstorm coming, while I said that it must be the dust from the volcano. Dad thought I was nuts, as Mt. St. Helens was hundreds of miles away.
I was right, and the air turned a weird green color, and it started getting really, really dark. One of the eeriest things I've ever witnessed.
~Squirrel
Oh yeah.
Our house shook. My dad thought we were jumping off the (raised) fireplace hearth and landing flat-footed on the floor. The windows were rattling.
Lucky for us, though, we're to the north and the ash went mostly east. Places like Yakima went dark in the middle of the day.
We took our boys to visit the mountain in the summer of 2007 and it was fascinating!
Wow!! I remember Mt.St.Helen's being in the news. That is amazing that you felt the blast! Beautiful photo too!
I'm sure you noticed... the photo is NOT mine :0) But it is amazing.
We saw/heard some breath-taking stories and footage when we were at the park's visitors centers.
I am sure we all remember where we were. I was 8 years old, and we lived in Musselshell, Mt. at the time. (about 70 miles north east of Billings) The sky went grey for a couple of days and we got a ligth dusting. I was outside playing (much like your grasshopper herders do) and Mom called me in.
Sounds like your day was more exciting than mine!
Craig
The eruption was at 8:30 in the morning. (8:32?)
Now I'm wondering (science question) - how fast did the shock wave travel? If it goes the speed of sound (about a mile in 5 seconds) it probably took about 15 minutes to reach us. Or does it go faster, somehow?
At any rate, we were getting ready for church, which was just a walk across the street. When we arrived, other folks had had their car radios on and had heard the news.
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