Observations for 31 July


In the middle of the night I thought 7 hours would be enough to get out to Grand but it wasn't. Once again I got to see Vent and Turban and an empty crater. As a bonus, I did get to see Rift start.

The next time I got up, it was overcast with a thunderstorm moving in. Eating breakfast during that time seemed a good idea, then it was time for a Grand wait.

I really wasn't expecting a third short interval and I was right. But we did get to see a different Penta eruption than the norm. Usually a Penta eruption starts after there's been heavy overflow from Spasmodic and a slow, steadily more vigorous eruption of Tardy. This eruption was about an hour after Sawmill and Spasmodic was just at the point of overflow, and dropping. Otherwise it was a normal eruption that lasted about an hour. During the eruption itself(another two burst) Sput A and Sputnik started blipping.

At that point it was time to head in, as the sky was getting black and the rains were coming. But as we approached Sawmill, it started erupting, lasted about 30 seconds and then quit. I've seen that before, during deep drains,but this must've been more of a post-Penta effect as the water levels weren't low enough for that.

That afternoon, after a quick but intense thundershower, saw a disinterested event at Fan & Mortar;. Heading out for the evening Grand eruption, it looked like I was going to get wet, but the heavy clouds passed both to the north and south. The southern one was close enough that we got a rainbow, but no droplets.

Once again Grand demonstrated its bimodal behavior, passing up early opportunities for an eruption to only wait until it reached the 10 hour mark. I did get to see another Penta steam-phase eruption during the wait, though. It was while I was coming in that I heard that another event was starting at Fan & Mortar. The idea of riding down all that way, then coming back disappointed an hour later didn't appeal to me, so I turned off the radio and headed in instead. That proved to be a mistake, as the event quickly built into an eruption that took place well before midnight.