Observations for 2020 August 21


Another smoky day, but not quite as bad as yesterday morning. By evening most of the smoke seemed to be thickest to the south, down in the Tetons and Jackson.

Went out on a double interval for the One Burst Grand eruption, and got a full Turban Delay interval. So that was probably the shorter of the two intervals.

Checked out Daisy, which had another short duration of around 3m15s. Over at the Sawmill Group, saw Crystal in overflow, along with Belgian actually up to and over the rim. I still can't see any correlation between the water levels there and the activity elsewhere.

The mid-day One Burst Grand had to have a five Turban delay, again showing the bimodality in the intervals. The call that Beehive's Indicator was erupting came after about three intervals. So many left for the sure thing. Fortunately for them, Grand held off so that we had a total of five intervals in the Delay.

Later in the afternoon, Fan & Mortar had a nice attempt at erupting. There were some Main Vent surges that filled the vent area. Lower Mortar had a high water level too. But Mortar's Bottom Vent was dominating, and it lasted a long time. I don't like seeing that, and it always seems that Fan's response to strong Bottom Vent is weaker than desired. That was the case here, where the excitement evaporated at the activity died out as Angle Vent started.

So went over to Grand for the evening activity. There it seemed like I missed a Delay, based on the long Turban duration and the lack of overflow before the next Turban eruption. West Triplet started at the same time as Turban, and that led to a true Delay. West Triplet's duration was short, so it was a surprise that almost immediately Rift started. And then the One Burst Grand eruption started. I had been prepared for a long wait, with an eruption in the dark, so this was a nice relief to see it just after sunset.