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Observations for 2020 September 06

By moonlight, we could see Rift erupting as we approached Castle. I figured that that meant we would need to wait until Rift ended. Which was the case. First we had to wait through a series of four Turban eruptions to get to the Turban delay. Then it took two more Turban intervals before the eruption itself. At some point between the start of Vent and the time a pause could have happened, Rift quit. The night was mild and only a bit hazy from the smoke, and probably the last nighttime Grand for the trip.

The next One Burst Grand Eruption was even more obnoxious. At a little over eight hours, it turned into the longest Grand eruption interval so far this visit. There wasn't any Turban interval delay, just a series of non-descript Turban eruptions and intervals, with nothing to show for any of them. None of the other vents in the area were active, so they can't be blamed either. The only indication of an impending eruption was that the Turban intervals were getting shorter. After the Grand eruption, I did notice that for the first time in a while, Belgian Pool was down about 2cm.

Beehive had a short Indicator eruption, catching us by starting as we approached Anemone, with the wind in our direction. It took a bit of running and berating tourons to get out into the dry area to the north. At least the umbrellas were useful this time. This was around the time that we were starting to see the smoke plume rising to the south.

It appears that Fan & Mortar are going to have weak events from now until the next eruption. There were two today, and decided to ignore the first, but go on down for the second. The opening of Upper Mortar has been so split that it is now easy to see the end-of-event splashing and roaring down deep in the former vent.

And by this time, the whole southern horizon was a mass of smoke plumes visibly growing and rising. Over at Grand for the final One Burst Eruption of the day, were after one Turban interval we got a two Turban Interval delay. Much shorter than the previous waits. There was a hint of rainbow at the top of the Grand watercolumn, but otherwise it was another windy eruption.