Mt. Fitzherbert

Potential ash hazards: Wind forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), coupled with eruption models, show that any ash clouds that rise above the crater rim today would drift southwestward.

Recent observations: Crews had a very successful day yesterday. They collected samples of rocks and ash from the lava dome—some from very near the point where the whaleback emerges from the ground, deployed a new GPS unit on the dome, obtained aerial photographs for construction of a new digital elevation model to document topographic changes to the dome, and brought a seismic station on the old dome back online. If conditions are favorable tomorrow, crews plan to conduct gas measurements, conduct maintenance on a debris-flow warning station, and deploy survey targets on the new dome to obtain motion data that will complement that from the GPS unit. Seismicity remains in a relatively low state, with small quakes (M1-1.5) occurring about every 3 minutes.