They’re all guaranteed to erupt at some point within the next 10,000 years.
Not necessarily at the same time, though it’d be impressive as hell.
Ha, I saw this thread title and was going ask how the Giant Fly was doing. Love that caption!
I was up in the Portland/Seattle area shortly after the last eruption, and still have a bottle filled with fine ash that I got from the side of the road. Please be safe.
In your professional opinion, is the current spate of activity likely to awaken any alien shapeshifting robotic lifeforms so that they might resume their ancient battle here on Earth?
I was there in 1997. For an Irishman used to our gentle countryside and zero natural disasters, it was a fascinating experience. I’ll be watching this one with interest.
12:02 PM PDT this date.
More later …
I understand he’s going to get his ass out of there this time. As soon as he can dig himself out of the last one. 
There was another event at Mount St. Helens today. I was up there at the time and witnessed it. I’ll have some info later tonight. Right now I’ve been recalled back to duty as a result of today’s event.
This post is intended as a legal bump, to keep this on page one pending getting an update from Duckster (or another knowledgeable PNW Doper) on the situation with MSH. In particular, they showed on the 11:00 news last night that rangers were evacuating an overlook some miles away owing to the danger – what’s happening at this point?
The USGS is no longer saying if but when. USGS is detecting volcanic gases from magma moving up to/into the volcano. This is a significant point because they were holding to a theory that the current activity might have been fueled by “old magma” that has been within the mountain for years.
Old magma is best described as popping the top on a can of pop and allowing it to go flat. If there was no detection of volcanic gases, the theory holds that the old magma merely serves as a heating element for groundwater and the event is basically steam explosions. However, with the confirmation of gases, this can only mean that new magma is present.
There was also a second harmonic tremor this morning which lasted about 25 minutes. These two tremors, combined with the detection of gases effectively confirms new magma is moving upward, from perhaps as little as five miles below the volcano. Also, if magma does break through the surface, do not expect flowing lava and/or fountains similat to what occurs in Hawaii. Cascade Range volcanos are more gassy, hence, more explosive.
The FAA issued temporary flight restrictions around and over the volcano, except for official USGS flights. Some media flights are authorized but that’s it. The TFR does not affect any commerical air routes. All of this is subject to change depending upon the severity of the eruption.
When? Nobody knows. The area is on Level III alert, the highest level. An eruption is imminent, but the definition of “imminent” can mean anything from minutes to hours, days, even weeks. The science is not that exact.
In 1980, there was only one seismograph in the immediate area and some equipment on the ground, all of which needed to be tended by humans onsite. Right now there are almost a dozen seismographs in and around the mountain, along with other sensors. Everything can be done remotely, howver, a few sensors require having their batteries changed. Others operate via photocells. In Friday’s eruption the dome seismograph was destroyed, along with a GPS tracking device. But enough seismographs remain, in addition to seismos further way.
I was up at Johnston Ridge yesterday before the Level III Alert was issued. I was at Coldwater Ridge and witnessed the harmonic tremor from there when I saw an avalance occur within the crater, triggered by the tremor.
With the Johnston Ridge Observatory within the evacuation area, no one, including the news media, are closer to the volcano than at Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center, about nine miles away. However, the Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam is now the closest operating camera and the only camera looking directly up the throat of Mount St. Helens. The VolcanoCam continues to transmit images every five minutes to the national server. So if you have problems accessing the image, it is not the VolcanoCam; it’s the national server being overloaded.
Where can I read about what was understood before the 1980 event and what was recorded leading up to the event?
Why are people getting into this so much?
Because watching a volcano erupt is cool!
(With everyone who could be in danger out of harm’s way, natch.)
Makes me want to do a road trip and take pictures…
Oh. With all the coverage going on, I thought there was another dynamic to it.
I gotcha. (Or: I gotcha ya.)
I think they’ve evacuted everybody that could be in Mt. St. Helen’s path, so nobody seems to be in trouble. 
Are there any problems with thrill-seekers trying to get into the danger area?
Whoa. That’s news to me, and it changes things rather a bit.
Deploy the Bean-O!
Questions for the vulcanologists in the crowd: How long after an eruption is a volcano considered dormant? 100 years? 5000 years? And how do they know the difference between a dormant volcano and an extinct one? Has an extinct volcano ever surprised us by erupting?
Conversation in a Seattle pharmaceuticals warehouse:
“Hey, Fred! Is this order right? Somebody at Gifford Pinchot National Forest wants 330,000 pounds of anti-gas medications?!?”
Sounds to me like Mt. Saint Helens is a deadly and powerful Weapon of Mass Destruction. That the mountain is about to erupt right before the Presidential Election should hardly a surpise; I’m guessing this is part of some scheme coordinated by terrorist cells located in Seattle and Portland to disrupt our Democratic Process. Those fiends have no respect for our Liberty and Way of Life. Given the Clear and Imminent threat to Homeland Security, should we nuke it?