Observations for 21 July


Heading out to Grand was interrupted twice. First, Beehive started to erupt just as I got to the front of the Inn. So took a few minutes to watch and listen to it by moonlight. Late in that eruption Castle started, which meant I got rained on between the bike rack and Crested.

Since that wasn't a minor eruption, it also looks like we are going to get at least one more synchronized eruption of the two this afternoon.

The wait for Grand was uneventful. West Triplet was high enough to erupt, but didn't. Even after Grand's one burst eruption.WIthout a breeze, got another one of those starts where the water column outraces the growing steam cloud at its base.

Also encountered the coyote in front of the Inn on my way back. Also below Crested encounter a couple of people who were headed out, to what, I don't know, as Castle and Grand had already erupted. (And there was another light over by Liberty Pool.) Only thing I can think of is that they interpreted the center time of Grand's window as the time to be out there.

So six hours later I wasn't just killing time in the parking lot at the Lower Ham's Store. There was no reason to be headed out. Except that's when the call that Grand had started erupting with an interval of 6h04m. Got out there in plenty of time to watch a 11-1/2 minute one burst eruption.

Following that, did see Bulger's Hole fill with water during a Bulger major eruption, but no eruption from the hole. The Sawmill Group was just ending a Tardy cycle, so decided that since I had nothing much better to do, I'd go back out in a bit and watch for Penta. After 1.5 hours of nothing much happening during the next cycle except heavy convection in Penta. At least on the way in I got to see an eruption of Tilt, and even recorded the whole thing.

Beehive broke the lock it was appearing to have with Castle by having a 12-1/2 hour interval. With the strong shifting winds, it was also a soggy eruption.

When I went out for the evening, it appeared that we'd still had neither an eruption of Sawmill nor Penta since I was last out. Got a major from Bulger, but no fill in the Hole. Grand had a sort of repeat of last night, where Vent came up and dropped, but this time the 11m15s eruption started only about a minute after Turban. And during the eruption, we had a Churn eruption, which signaled the end of another Sawmill cycle.

After both of today's daylight eruptions, Vent and Turban paused for about 20 minutes, which is the longer of the three modes. Interesting to see what happens tonight, since that and a two hour Rift eruption seemed to not prevent a 7h16m interval.