Mount St Helens erupts, notes The Australian. The USGS notes that the event took place at about 5:30, sending ash up to about 36,000 feet. Based on images I saw on TV, the eruption was clearly visible from downtown Portland as the sun began setting on an amazingly warm spring day.

I poked through the Volcanocam recent images archive and it appears that they did not get the pix, although I was hurried (I’m in the middle of cooking dinner).

UPDATE: Well, maybe it did get some pix. But the blurring – is that from the quake?

Huh. Actually, that’s pretty cool. The eruption coincided with sunset, so the camera gets blurry and fades out as the light goes over images 20, 19, 18, and so on. Compiled as a movie, the camera would appear to have been affected by the eruption into a loss of signal.

Air kisses, people – the sole won’t wait! Tell me if I missed something!

UPDATE: Paul Freankenstein points out this Flickr photoset.