Cascade Range Current Update

Hot weather makes for high runoff from Rainier glaciers

Hot weather in the Pacific Northwest has resulted in increased melting of glaciers around Mount Rainier, producing more melt water than usual. Around 9 pm yesterday evening (14 August), Mount Rainier National Park rangers reported a flood event near Christine Falls in lower Van Trump Creek within the park. Observations today by Mount Rainier National Park rangers and USGS scientists indicate that meltwater from Kautz Glacier had saturated loose glacial debris in the upper Van Trump Creek drainage area. Portions of this saturated material slumped last night, resulting in small debris flows that moved down Van Trump Creek to the Nisqually River. Minor rise in the Nisqually River ensued for several hours. Continued slumping of the loose saturated material throughout today (15 August) has caused additional minor debris flows down the creek. It is expected that more small events like those of the past few days will occur in the the Van Trump Creek drainage as long as the hot weather lasts.

Volcanoes in the Cascade Range are all at normal levels of background seismicity. These include Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens in Washington State; Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Three Sisters, Newberry, and Crater Lake, in Oregon; and Medicine Lake, Mount Shasta, and Lassen Peak in northern California.

Information about the recent detection of a slight uplift of a broad area west of South Sister volcano can be found in the update of May 8, 2001.

USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory, the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network at the University of Washington, and the USGS Northern California Seismic Network and Volcano Hazards Team in Menlo Park, California, monitor the major volcanoes in the Cascade Range of northern California, Oregon, and Washington.



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