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Observations for 2021 May 04


Awoke to find at least an inch of snow on the ground. So decided that we should wait a few hours before venturing out onto the roads. Then I noted that Grand had been seen on the webcam after midnight, and the next opportunity would be during that wait. So it was out to see what Grand could do.

By then there was at least three inches of snow and the boardwalks were slippery. I took a nice dive just beyond Rift. But we made it to the benches as the sun was coming out, and the breeze made Grand's pool visible. Only had to wait for one short Turban eruption interval, and Grand started erupting.

Around the seven minute mark, I noticed that Grand was acting like it wanted to go into Big Sawmill mode, or even quit. So not a surprise when that happened a minute later. A short pause, and we got a short second burst. So then the question became, are we going to get a really short two burst eruption? As it turned out, it was a longer pause, but we did get the third burst, the first I've seen since 2019. I was hoping, because the eruption was so short, that we'd get a four burst, but less than a minute later, Vent and Turban had quit.

During the eruption, West Triplet started to overflow slightly. By the end of Grand's eruption, it was starting to thump and burst as we left. I also took a quick photo of Sawmill, showing the rings of snow-free areas around the vents of both Sawmill and Turban.

Snow-free areas around Sawmill and Uncertain Geysers

So then it was off to Norris. The roads were still slushy in spots, but nothing to worry about, and the sun was helping to melt even that. We arrived as it was starting to cloud up, and about an hour later, the snow started. Over the next hour we got between one and two inches of the stuff. Fortunately, there was no wind, so it wasn't unpleasant being out in it, and once the snow stopped, the clouds disappeared and the sun quickly melted all that accumulation.

On the other hand New Crater/Steamboat still looked like previous days. There was one big surge around 14:00 that got recorded on video, then nothing much until about 19:00. It was then that we noticed that the water flowing down the runoff was more consistent, and a bit heavier down at the bridge. South wasn't having any large splashing, but was consistently putting out water. On the other side, North Vent was going strong, and it seemed that a lot of the activity was concerted. The flow of water was still fairly good as we left at sunset.