Today marks the 40th anniversary of the most important volcanic eruption in American history. Not only was the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens the largest explosive eruption ever in the lower 48 states, but it birthed modern volcano monitoring for the country.
Yet, since then, the Cascades have been relatively quiet, lulling many people into thinking that there isn’t much threat. That might be partially true: the Cascades are a strangely quiet volcanic arc, but that quiet could be broken by any number of volcanoes from Washington to California.
There is a plethora of articles about the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption marking the anniversary. For the 30th anniversary, I compiled many people’s memories of the eruption, and they are well worth the read. It was an impressive blast that forever changed the volcano — an understatement considering the volcano lost most of summit and north side!
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