Mt. Rainier - the morning after
http://www.king5.com/detailtopstory.html?StoryID=24555
Glacial outburst on Mount Rainier
causes rise in Nisqually River
August 15, 2001, 07:45 AM
ORTING - Geologists were getting their first look
Wednesday morning at the damage caused after a surge of
water rushed down the Nisqually River from a melted portion
of a Mount Rainier glacier Tuesday night, causing the river
level to rise.
Park rangers and geologists planned a
helicopter flight to try to determine what
caused the rush of water, which brought
trees and rocks with it. They are keeping a
close eye on everything happening in the
rivers below Mount Rainier.
This year's drought and low water levels in
the river are actually helping the situation.
"It looks like this was a smaller scale event.
Most of the activity stayed within the park
boundaries and the banks held all the debris
and the water," said Jodie Woodcock of
Emergency Management.
State emergency operations officials say it
was not a mudflow, and there was no
evidence of unusual seismic activity at the
14,411-foot volcano.
There was no word of any injuries.
The Nisqually River was running at four times
its normal level, but was staying within its
banks.
Pierce County activated its emergency
operations center and called out its search
and rescue personnel and swift water rescue
teams, sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.
"What appears to have happened is the Van Trump Glacier up there
has done a large water release and the water is kicking trees up in the
campgrounds … and at this point it appears that when it all filters into
the Nisqually, that the Nisqually should contain it," said Troyer.
"We want everybody away from the Nisqually River, but at this point
there is nothing going down through the Puyallup River or the Carbon
River. So that's good news for the towns that are up a little bit
north," said Troyer.
The glacier is located west of Paradise.
"We are on our way up there and hopefully this whole incident will
end with just a mess down the Nisqually," said Troyer.
Orting Police Chief Ron Emmons was about just getting ready to go
to bed when he got the call.
"There was no sirens put out or anything else, just what people were
picking up here and there over radios or scanners or whatever. They
started calling neighbors and one thing or another and the next thing I
know I got a call at home, I was in bed and going to sleep and they
said 'well the mountain's going off,'" said Emmons.
"I got out right away and started checking around and found out it
was just some melting snow that was causing a little debris into the
Nisqually, and the Nisqually, fortunately, is one of the few rivers that
doesn't affect us at all anyhow. And so the Carbon and Puyallup are
normal, and no alarms went off and everything here is fine," he said.
Glacial outbursts
The U.S. Geological Survey explains on its Web site:
The smallest, but most frequent, debris flows at Mount Rainier
begin as glacial outburst floods, also called by the Icelandic term
"j"kulhlaup" (pronounced "yo-kul-h-loip").
Outburst floods at Mount Rainier form from sudden release of
water stored at the base of glaciers or within the glacier ice.
Outburst floods have been recorded from four glaciers on Mount
Rainier: the Nisqually, Kautz, South Tahoma, and Winthrop
glaciers.
From 1986 through 1992, South Tahoma Glacier released a
total of 15 outburst floods, including at least one every year.
These outburst floods from South Tahoma Glacier occurred
during periods of unusually hot or rainy weather in summer or
early autumn, and were apparently caused by rapid input of
meltwater or rainwater to the base of the glacier. The exact
timing of such outburst floods is unpredictable, however.
/\/\/\/\/\/
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134329746_rainier15m.html
Wednesday, August 15, 2001 - 01:05 a.m. Pacific
Water surges down Rainier; 'glacial
outburst' causes rapid rise in Nisqually
By Seattle Times staff and news services
A surge of water from a melted glacier on Mount Rainier caused the
Nisqually River to rise rapidly last night.
The "glacial outburst flood," also known as a jökulhlaups (an Icelandic term
pronounced "yo-kul-hloips"), apparently originated from the Van Trump
Glacier and swept into Van Trump Creek, a tributary of the Nisqually.
Officials had originally feared it was a rapid and potentially dangerous
mudflow, the result of heat from within the volcano.
The rapid rise in the water intially prompted authorities to urge people to
stay away from the river.
Ed English of the Morton Police Department said he was alerted at 10:15
p.m. by the Ashford Fire Department that a wall of muddy water was
moving down the Nisqually. English said the river rose about one foot. He
said at 11 p.m. the event was downgraded and his department was taken off
alert.
There was no flooding outside the Nisqually River basin. The Carbon and
Puyallup rivers were not affected.
Water, mud and debris rushed through two campgrounds, said Ed Troyer,
Pierce County sheriff's spokesman.
Campers at several sites within Rainier National Park were urged to leave as
a precaution but there was no word of any injuries or flooding. Because the
Nisqually is at low flow this time of year, authorities said, the burst of water
was contained within its banks.
Pierce County activated its emergency-operations center and called out its
search-and-rescue personnel and swift-water-rescue teams, Troyer said
Although Troyer was initially told that mudflow alarms sounded, there were
no sirens. Seismologists and geologists have flow meters that can detect
unusual flows on the Carbon and Puyallup river basins - but not the
Nisqually.
Instead, authorities learned of the event because someone at Rainier actually
heard the material running downhill.
"It was probably making a fair amount of noise and actually throwing some
boulders around," said Andy Lockhart, scientist at the Cascades Volcano
Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.
A page went out from Park Service supervisors to county officials about 10
p.m. warning of possible activity on Rainier, said Steve Bailey, director of
Pierce County Emergency Management.
Ruth Ludwin, a research scientist at the University of Washington
Seismology Lab, said it's quite likely the flow was in no way related to
geologic activity.
"This is something that has been observed at Mount Rainier in the past," she
said. "They're saying it's glacial-outburst flooding. That's water that's
impounded underneath a glacier. After that hot weather we had, there had to
be some major melting."
She said the water can become a potentially dangerous lahar - a
water-saturated debris flow - but it doesn't have to before it is noticeable.
"I don't think there's an obvious way to distinguish between a waterflow and
a debris flow from the signal," she said. "They are detecting a signal - a
vibration - so they don't know, and because the whole point of putting in
an alarm system is to warn when there's anything unusual, you'll probably
have more of these things when there's no disaster than you will when there's
a catastrophic event."
At Mount Rainier, the outbursts result from rapid release of water stored
within or at the base of glaciers. The floods and the potential lahars they can
trigger can be dangerous in surrounding river valleys. About 36 outburst
floods happened on Rainier in the 20th century, the USGS says in a 1998
report.
Seattle Times reporters Hal Bernton, Craig Welch and Frank Vinluan
and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Looks like, if Camp Muir recorded the "rumblings" of this event, the majority occured between 8:39 PM and was over around 1:17am. The other charts from the mountain show the event but not as strongly as Muir.
Muir
http://spike.geophys.washington.edu/SEIS/PNSN/WEBICORDER/RCM_EHZ_UW.2001081500.html
Mount Freemont - shows a slight event of roughly the same times
http://spike.geophys.washington.edu/SEIS/PNSN/WEBICORDER/FMW_EHZ_UW.2001081500.html
Longmire- shows a slight event of roughly the same times
http://spike.geophys.washington.edu/SEIS/PNSN/WEBICORDER/LON_BHZ_UW.2001081500.html