New webcam provides sharper view into Mount St. Helens’ crater
Published 10:56 pm Wednesday, August 1, 2007
The Mount St. Helens volcano camera is now “high def” – and not just because it’s perching at 4,500 feet.
The Gifford Pinchot National Forest has added a second camera to its Web site, a high-definition camera that provides a closer and sharper view of the growing lava dome.
It is part of a camera array tucked under the eaves of the Johnston Ridge Observatory, about 5 miles north of the crater.
The U.S. Forest Service’s older camera will remain online, and, like the newer version, will provide a new digital photograph every five minutes.
But the new camera, which started transmitting Friday, will enable viewers to “zoom in closer on the new lava dome, and also allows for flexibility to pull the camera back to get a wider view (of) a larger eruptive event,” said Dennis Lapcewich, a webmaster for the Forest Service.
Since the original camera was installed in 1996, it’s been the most visited site on the Forest Service’s Web system. It averages a million hits a month.
“I can’t tell you the number of e-mails from teachers and home-schoolers who use it show science at work. You can be a home-school parent in Biloxi, Miss., and log on and show your child a volcano rebuilding itself,” said Roger Peterson, spokesman for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
