I was here during the last eruption too...the most common trick was to add a piece of nylon from a pair of pantyhose as a pre-filter. Jay

A small but significant explosive event occurred yesterday at 5:25 p.m. PST. Pilot reports indicated that the resulting steam-and-ash plume reached an altitude of 36,000 feet above sea level within minutes. The main eruption pulse lasted about 10 minutes, but lower levels of activity persisted for at least another 15 to 45 minutes. Within minutes of the onset of this event, we lost communication with 7 monitoring stations in the crater, but not with any stations outside the crater. The event followed a few hours of slightly increased seismicity that was noted but not interpreted as precursory activity. There were no other indications of an imminent change in activity. Still images from a camera at the northeast end of the crater mouth show a clear component of explosive vertical jetting associated with the event and evidence of ballistics extending at least as far as the north side of the old dome. Aerial photos in of the waning phases of the activity in conjunction with these still images show evidence of small ash flows having moved north and onto to old lava dome. There were reports of fine dustings of ash falling in Ellensberg, Yakima, and Toppenish, Washington between 7pm and 9pm yesterday. As of 2am today, the leading edge of the plume had been tracked to western Montana as a faint and diffuse cloud.

Man To saleswoman: "Honest, they're not for me. They're for my car."

Man To saleswoman: "Honest, they're not for me. They're for my car."

Sure they are.....and how many spares do you have lying around? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Curtis, I think you got my words confused. It's much worse than the 1st one, since it started going again. Not worse than the 1980 one by far. LOL!

Anyhow, the plume reached to 36,000 feet. It started drifting east, and then switched northeast. Mt. St. Helens is in the NW corner of my county, so there were some good views of the plume here. A ash fall advisory was put out until 9pm last night, with the first reports being most of the ash was to land in my county. Ash and Asthmatics don't mix well, so I was looking for a long night.

It was just ash and steam, no landslides, or huge earthquakes here. Really cool to look at though. One of the Portland, OR news channels showed some magna near the "fin" in the crater. (Come on you big sissy mother nature, is that all you got?!) <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/evil.gif" alt="" />

I would kill to be that close, when it went off.

I would like to watch it from closed circuit TV... That way I don't have to worry about a big rock to the head! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />