After getting that picture that graced the last posting (and indeed getting six or seven more, loading them into Preview, and treating the whole darn thing like a flip movie book) I took a beak from the computer and turned on the television.
KGW-8 was showing Breaking News about Loo-wit. The glacier in the crater, which is draped around the south side of the lava dome like a scarf about a neck, appears to be breaking down, quite possibly due to magma just below the surface.
The Oregonian has also published a photograph showing the new features. Essentially we now have three new holes in the crater floor, and that's where all the venting is coming from. One is at the lava dome/glacial interface, and has a pool of water in it, sometimes steaming, sometimes boiling.
The venting of steam and ash isn't doing anything to allevate the pressure, though. What energy is being released isn't but a fraction of what's gathering below.
And to the folks in the Central Washington Cascade towns of Randle and (the ironically interestingly named) Packwood, it's back to the '80s as they deal with the realities of the ashfall and as they prepare for the big ashfall should the sustained winds keep going to the northeast.
By Samuel John Klein of Portland, Oregon - Graphic Designer without Portfolio, aspiring artist who dawdled too long.
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