Mt. St. Helens Explodes With Ash Plume; No Damage Seen

Mt. St. Helens exploded early this morning, sending a plume of ash 30,000 feet into the air, scientists said.

The explosion was recorded on volcano seismographs at 2:07 a.m., said Chris Jonientz-Trisler, a research scientist at the University of Washington’s seismology laboratory in Seattle.

There were no reports of damage and residents of neighboring towns were not in any danger, authorities said.

Jonientz-Trisler said the explosion was “very minor, minor, minor” compared to the May 18, 1980, eruption that leveled 230 square miles, left 57 people dead or missing and sent up an ash cloud that circled the globe.

Unlike an eruption, an explosion does not spew lava.

“This kind of thing is more like the steam and ash explosions that occurred last winter in December and January,” Jonientz-Trisler said. Pilots spotted ash 30,000 feet in the air this morning.

Winds were carrying the ash plume to the southeast, toward the Columbia River and into Oregon, the National Weather Service said.

The explosion also apparently knocked out two seismic monitoring stations north of the lava dome that had been built on the crater floor.

The volcano’s last significantly large eruption was on March 19, 1982, when mud flowed from the crater six miles to the north fork of the Toutle River.

The cataclysmic May, 1980, eruption blew off the top 1,300 feet of the once-symmetrical peak, a lava dome dating to about the 16th Century.