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 northeastward early in the day and east-southeastward later.

Recent observations: Scientists had a productive day in the field yesterday. They retrieved two seismic stations (portable spiders) from the crater and replaced batteries to last through the winter and made other repairs, collected a batch of rocks from the actively growing part of the lava dome, and made a measurement of gas flux. Final results of the gas flight await further analysis, but values appear to be largely unchanged from recent measurements. Two sets of photographs, each covering several hours, were collected from a point about 400 meters from the active lava dome. The photographs, taken at 10-second intervals, will reveal details about the rate of lava extrusion.