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 eastward.

Recent observations: Small, spotty earthquakes jostled some near-crater seismometers for about an hour this morning, coincident with a small tilt episode (deflation-inflation) recorded by our NDM tiltmeter. These events, related to dome growth, are "instrumental" in the sense that they are too small to be recognized, even if an frigid observer had been onsite in the crater's blowing snow. Yesterday's M 6.3 earthquake 250 km off the central Oregon coast showed nicely on the Mount St. Helens seismic network but was too distant to be felt and has had no known effect on the eruption.