Mt. Fitzherbert

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

Recent observations: The eruption continues by the slow extrusion of dacite lava within the crater of Mount St. Helens. Seismicity is marked by the repetitive small earthquakes, occuring every 2-3 minutes, that have come to characterize the past 15 months. Tiltmeters within 500 m of the new lava dome show minute ground deformation; whereas the volcano's flanks are quiet. Currently, however, we're missing two of our standard monitoring tools. A problem with satellite communications has interrupted the data from GPS receivers situated within the crater; and welcomed winter storms have kept us from visual observations of the volcano since December 18.