She's gonna blow....

There's breaking news that scientists think there's a 70% chance that Mt. St. Helens might have an eruption in the next few days.

The USGS has been monitoring St. Helens closely since Sept. 23, when swarms of tiny earthquakes were first recorded. Scientists said they believe the
seismic activity is being caused by pressure from a reservoir of molten rock a
little more than a mile below the crater. That magma apparently rose from a
depth of about six miles in 1998, but never reached the surface, Wynn said.
The mountain's eruption on May 18, 1980, blasted away its top 1,300 feet, spawned mudflows that choked the Columbia River shipping channel, leveled hundreds of square miles of forest and paralyzed towns and cities more than 250 miles to the east with volcanic ash.

This gives me a chance to give some props to the hero of the Mt. St. Helens recovery the first time around: the Pocket Gopher!! They were burrowed underground in May 1980, so they survived the blast, and then spent the following weeks, months, and years doing more of their habitual burrowing which brought fertile soil and seeds up from beneath the ash. Eventually, enough soil and seeds, and plants, flowers, trees, etc began to grow. And the rest, as they say, is history... Until history repeats itself.