This from AP:

Mount St. Helens shot a steam and ash plume at least 16,000 feet into the air Monday after a large rockfall from the lava dome in the Southwest Washington volcano's crater, scientists said.

Pilots reported the plume rose between 16,000 and 20,000 feet in the air, said scientists at the Cascades Volcano Observatory.

The rockfall coincided with a magnitude 3.1 earthquake shortly after 9 a.m. Monday at the mountain, scientists said, adding such events are expected during growth of the lava dome.

"There is no evidence of an explosion associated with this event," the observatory said in a statement.

Clouds obscured the crater at the time.

Lava has continued to push into the crater — most recently forming a sheer rock fin — since the 8,364-foot mountain reawakened with a drumfire of low-level seismic activity in September 2004. The crater was formed by the volcano's May 18, 1980, eruption.

Gotta love this:

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - An emergency radio station mistakenly warned that a massive, volcanic-caused mudflow was headed from the flanks of Mount Rainier and that listeners in the valley below should rush to higher ground.

The emergency lahar warning was broadcast Wednesday for nearly an hour on the 1580 AM frequency in the suburban Pierce County town of Puyallup.

Authorities had no estimate how many people heard the broadcast on the weak frequency, or how many evacuated.

Nancy Eldred heard it while driving in the Puyallup Valley and called her daughter, Renee Hutchinson, in Tacoma.

"I was in tears," said Hutchinson, whose 17-month-old son, Ethan, was in the car with his grandmother. "I was shaking."

After Hutchinson warned co-workers, about 30 people started frantically calling loved ones. Some called their children at schools in the Puyallup Valley and told them to leave immediately.

Emergency officials in communities around Mount Rainier routinely test the system that would, in the event of a real lahar from the volcano, activate 24 sirens around the valley and broadcast a radio alert.

But on Wednesday, 1580 AM picked up the test signal as real and said the lahar was coming. The prerecorded radio message apparently was triggered by a software error.

Puyallup Fire Chief Merle Frank said the problem should be taken care of in the next few days.

(AP Photo/Ed Wray)

(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
This past winter has seen Mount St. Helens' highest recorded number of elk deaths in seven years, according to the latest from AP. An state management plan for elk has been slow to develop. Shown here are the remains of an elk, one of many undernourished over the winter. Winter elk deaths are routine and this past year's 63 deaths are considered within the typical range, according to state's regional wildlife manager Brian Calkins.

There has been more local concern for elk since this spring, when a local television news station broadcasted a privately filmed video showing dead and dying elk.

The 1980 eruption disrupted living conditions for elk in the river valley.

More information is available from the Department of Fish and Wildlife

Here's the latest from AP:

If the skies are clear as forecast, volcano watchers who turn out for the reopening of the Johnston Ridge Observatory on Friday will get a spectacular view of a hulking slab of rock that's rapidly growing in Mount St. Helens' crater.

It's jutting up from one of seven lobes of fresh volcanic rock that have been pushing their way through the surface of the crater since October 2004.

The fin-shaped mass is about 300 feet tall and growing 4 feet to 5 feet a day, though it occasionally loses height from rockfalls off its tip, said Dan Dzurisin, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey.