Observations for 07 August 2012
While it wasn't that cold, the fog was forming during the wait for the early Grand eruption. The short first burst gave promise of at least two bursts, but the two minute long second burst made sure that was all it promised.
Grand and Beehive managed to coordinate their eruptions for the late morning so that Beehive was still in eruption when Grand started. After a short first burst, and a reasonable second, the pool caught and started to refill. So far the duration of the eruption was only 9m45s. This was a slow refill, getting higher and higher for well over 100 seconds. During this time the activity of Vent & Turban increased in intensity, until Vent was going about 20 feet and Turban was full and sloshing as high as it ever get. Then suddenly the water just drained. And to make the insult complete, Vent & Turban quit almost immediately. So we didn't even get to hope for an after burst.
But the strangeness didn't end there. West Triplet started erupting, and there was nothing unusual about that. But it quit after a bit over six minutes. The pool level dropped slowly, and even seemed to stall a bit at the level I was seeing the other night when it was overflowing intermittently. Finally it receded to a level just in sight from the walkway. Waited a bit longer, perhaps for a delayed Rift start, but nothing much happened.
The evening eruption wait began with another West Triplet. If it had erupted since the short one earlier, I don't know. But where that was only a few minutes, this one lasted almost an hour. Of course, that meant also an eruption of Rift. If Rift does have an effect these days, it appears that it only delays Grand by about an hour, which is acceptable.
In any case we got the fifth consecutive two burst eruption, which is nice. This time, although the duration of the first two bursts was the same as earlier, the pool drained immediately while Vent & Turban continued. A short wait saw no afterplay, so I left again.
Castle also managed to coordinate its activity with Grand, in the morning it had a minor during Grand, while in the evening it preceded Grand by about an hour.