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 broadly southward.

Recent observations: The active spine of the lava dome continues to extrude slowly, as judged from instrumental data. A GPS receiver on the western part of the active spine shows continued southwestward advance at rate of 3-4 mm per day, as it has been doing since September. Somewhat greater eastward motion characterizes a small rise at the spine's summit. A GPS receiver east of the active spine is being budged slightly north and east, owing to it being gently shouldered aside by dome growth. The tiltmeter at NDM, adjacent to the north, shows small inflation-deflation events every few hours, some of them associated with small earthquakes. These tilt events likely signal dome growth pulses. Our last good image from the Sugarbowl cam was November 28; it showed no notable landscape changes. Views from the publically accessible JRO cam rarely capture more than the mouth of the crater, if that, owing to poor weather.