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Observations for 2019 September 05


The observations were a bit less today because it was time to take care of things in West Yellowstone. But just getting there was full of surprises. First it was the RV that tried to go beneath the Upper Gas Station canopy. At least the driver only knocked loose the first vent cover, and not the air conditioning unit.

Then it was the injured bison walking down the middle of the road at the Thud Group. It was covered with pine needles, too, so I would think it had had an automotive encounter. Just west of the Madison Campground was another bison on the north side of the road. The time of day was when everyone heads in from West Yellowstone, and I was wondering why I wasn't seeing any oncoming traffic. That was because there was a 1.5 mile long backup due to people stopping to see this one, lone bison.

Before we headed out, did go out for a One Burst Grand eruption. Nothing much to report there, other than it looks like the behavior of Sput D might be decoupling from Turban. There were a couple of times where there were two small eruptions of the sput between eruptions of Turban. Also, two Turban intervals before the Grand eruption the Turban interval was six seconds under 25 minutes. So officially it wasn't a delay, but Turban seems to have thought it was. The duration was almost 6-1/2 minutes, and Grand finally did erupt two Turban intervals later.

We got back in time for the next Grand. This turned out to be a two burst eruption, but unfortunately, the second burst lased almost 2-1/2 minutes. Sput D was active both before and after, with heavy overflow from West Triplet after. This seems to be the latest norm. I expect there to be another Rift in a few days, too.

With reports of a long Fountain duration, we went out there on the off chance of seeing a geyser eruption worth seeing. Instead Fountain started just before it got too dark to seen, but too light to justify the bright lights. With the huge crowd there, we left getting the duration to someone who likes watch the surf crashing against the rocks at high tide.

And between the time we drove over the overpass and parked at the Lower Ham's store, Grand started, so instead we headed in for the night.