Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington state, sending a plume of ash many miles skyward on May 19, 1980. Jack Smith/AP

For a moment, it seemed like a blast from the past: a plume over Mount St. Helens on Tuesday looked like the volcano might be erupting again. But fortunately, this was not an eruption — just a wind-whipped encore decades in the making.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), strong easterly gusts swept across the crater and nearby slopes in the southern Washington Cascades, kicking up old deposits of ash from its historic 1980 eruption, often referred to as the “big one,” and flinging them thousands of feet into the air. Decades-old volcanic ash is lofted over Mount St. Helens on September 16, 2025. USGS

The agency emphasized this is “not a sign of renewed

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