Splendid?


The last couple of days Kevin Leany, a frequent viewer of the realtime Old Faithful webcamera, has noticed some unusual activity when the camera has been pointed down basin. He's noticed on a couple of occasions a water column where "water was splashing about twice the height of the trees in the foreground." He's fairly certain that it's not Daisy, as "I have seen some Daisy eruptions on the cam before, but this one seemed to be much higher and it went for about 10 minutes."

Due to a bear closure of the entire Upper Basin, it appears that no one will be able to get down there and see if the slime around Splendid has been killed off, which always happens during these reactivations.

Splendid has been dormant since the winter of 1997-98. During the 1980s and early 1990s, it was not unusual to have a few isolated Splendid eruptions in the springtime. (Memorial Day weekend seemed to be quite common, usually observed while waiting at Grand.) So even if these turn out to be the first eruptions observed in a decade, it doesn't mean Splendid will be active this summer. But the fact that it can still erupt is always good news.