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 mostly to the north and northeast.

Recent observations: Mostly clear skies again prevail in the Mount St. Helens region this morning. As in past weeks, small earthquakes and rockfalls continue to occur, but levels of seismicity remain very low. Yesterday's good weather enabled field crews to perform maintenance on some instruments and to collect thermal imagery of the extruding lava dome. Although high winds aloft may hamper helicopter flights today, field crews will attempt to perform more maintenance on instrumentation and communications equipment.