[Scott from the Left Coast]

I bet they're pretty common around here. I know why I have mine: If you remember in August, following the big May 18 eruption, there were three big ash and steam eruptions that sent up spectacular white "mushroom" clouds but did no other damage.

At the time the first of those events occurred, I was on the roof of my parents house in Tacoma, fixing an antenna for them. And from there, on a clear day (and it was crystal clear that day), you can actually see Mt. St. Helens. All of a sudden, while I'm sitting on the roof, I see this gigantic (and I mean GIGANTIC) plume rising from where Mt. St. Helens should be. Considering that I'm a good 90 miles away from the mountain you can imagine my awe when I see this plume rise up that covers the entire southern sky -- it looked as if some had let off a nuclear bomb over Ft. Lewis (10 miles south of Tacoma). The plume came straight to the north (or right at me where I was sitting) eventually drops some ash on our cars in Tacoma and covers most of western Washington -- and this was a tiny eruption compared to the big one in May.

It was after this intense visual experience that I began to get volcano dreams, and still get them now over 20 years later.

[Quix]

That's one explanation. BTW I was in Spokane at the time on a Sunday drive with my Mother-in-law who stayed with us extra days because of all the ash.

Another explanation is that God is using such to alert people to a LOT of volcanoes old dormant; other ones and where none have ever been that will begin to dump lots of stuff into our air.