Mt. Fitzherbert
USGS Update 2006-Aug-11 10:30
Potential ash hazards: Wind forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), coupled with eruption models, show that any ash clouds rising above the crater rim today would drift mostly east-southeastward.
Recent observations: Continued cool, cloudy weather is forecast at the mountain today. A magnitude 2.9 earthquake at 6:24 this morning, and it triggered a rockfall. No significant change in ground deformation has occurred in the past 24 hours, and seismicity remains generally low. A USGS field crew is making ground-based gas measurements east of the mountain.
Mount St. Helens erupted again in the fall of 2004 as a new period of dome building began within the 1980 crater. Between October 2004 and February 2006, about 80 million cubic meters of dacite lava erupted immediately south of the 1980-86 lava dome. The erupting lava separated the glacier into two parts, first squeezing the east arm of the glacier against the east crater wall and then causing equally spectacular crevassing and broad uplift of the glacier's west arm. Vertical aerial photographs document dome growth and glacier deformation. These photographs enabled photogrammetric construction of a series of high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) showing changes from October 4, 2004 to February 9, 2006.