Mt. Fitzherbert

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 southwestward.

Recent observations: On this second anniversary of the start of unrest that culminated in the current eruption the mountain is clear and relatively quiet. Despite relatively low seismicity, the mountain continues to extrude lava that builds the new dome--lava which began emerging from the ground in October 2004. Field crews will be out again today finishing a tiltmeter installation, retrieving more portable seismometers, winterizing instrumentation sites, and sampling and collecting rocks from both the older parts of the mountain and the new lava dome.