To our north, in Washington State, we're getting news that a swarm of 130 small earthquakes has been occurring between 1 and 5 miles beneath Mount Saint Helens, the volcano that last erupted in 36 years ago, in 1980. Experts at the U.S. Geological Survey say that an eruption is not imminent, however they say that the swarm of quakes over the last two months, all with low magnitudes topping out at 1.3, indicates that the volcano is "recharging." As KATU reports, the quakes are "a sign [that] new magma is rising under the active volcano."

Wired went into some depth about these "recharge" events, discussing how they very often occur years before any eruption — Mount St. Helens in fact showed to be having a recharge around 1998-99, and the next it saw a small eruption was not until 2004. That eruption, which amounted to small spurts of magma popping and creating small new forms in the crater, went on over the next four years, ending in 2008.

Everyone over the age of 40 is likely to remember Mount St. Helens erupting in their childhoods, given that it's the last major eruption to occur in the continental US, and some may even remember the HBO film made about it, starring Art Carney. That eruption destroyed 250 homes and killed 57 people, raining ash all over the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and was as Wikipedia says "the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States."

That eruption was preceded, a week prior, by a 4.2 magnitude earthquake.

The Wired piece appears to have set the internet and news stations off in a frenzy, with a great many covering this earthquake swarm, including The Weather Channel, despite it possibly amounting to very little.

According to the USGS, "The current pattern of seismicity is similar to swarms seen at Mount St. Helens in 2013 and 2014; recharge swarms in the 1990s had much higher earthquake rates and energy release."