Observations for 2026 May 20


Woke up shortly before the alarm, and within a minute or two got the Beehive Indicator call. This time I only made it to the Firehole River bridge before I heard the roar of Beehive's eruption. Did get as far as Anemone (both vents were erupting). Also, Little Squirt was in eruption, and the alter ground near the boardwalk was steaming heavily.

Went back to the cabin to reconfigure, then headed out to Grand as it was almost 15 hours since the eruption we saw yesterday. Arrived to find Grand in overflow. Turns out that, based on the secret NPS time, I probably saw first overflow.

For the next couple of hours, it was a series of undistinguished Turban eruptions. Finally, West Triplet started to erupt, and eruption that lasted over an hour. During the middle of that eruption, I again saw slight steam coming from the location of East Triplet. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of heavy steaming, Rift began its eruption.

That eruption only lasted about 46 minutes. Two Turban eruption intervals later, Grand had its first good overflow, and we got a steamy but backlit One Burst Eruption.

2026-May-20 : 10:10:04 G1Q

 10:10:00	Boop	-0m03s
 10:10:04	B1	--- d=10m59s
 10:12:58	Vent	2m53s
 10:21:04	P1	10m59s
 10:22:09	V&T Quit	12m04s

				     	ΣD=10m59s
	* * * * *
 06:33:35			d=43s 	
 06:49:49	Int: 16m14s	d=03m45s 	
 07:11:29	Int: 21m40s	d=04m26s 	
 07:31:11	Int: 19m42s	d=03m56s 	
 07:52:20	Int: 21m09s	d=04m15s 	
 08:07:49	West Triplet d=01h04m 
 08:12:28	Int: 20m08s	d=04m29s 	
 08:31:56	Int: 19m28s	d=03m54s 	
 08:49:27	Rift d≈46m
 08:50:41	Int: 18m45s	d=04m18s 	
 09:09:13	Int: 18m32s	d=03m40s 
 09:12:22	end West Triplet	
 09:28:32	Int: 19m19s	d=02m59s 	
 09:46:36	Int: 18m04s	d=03m20s 	
		      Grand: 23m28s

When to return to Grand was an open quesiton. I didn't want to go too early, as these long waits in the cold and wind are tiresome, but didn't want to miss a short interval. Settled on getting out at around the 6-1/2 hour mark. So Grand erupts at just over six hours. I'd just finished something to eat and was getting properly configured.

Instead I went out to wait for Uncertain. Sawmill had a short, no overflow eruption while I was watching and waiting for West Triplet to quit, and see if Rift would start. It didn't. Then Sawmill starts another eruption about 45 minutes later, this time getting strong and overflowing.

By this time Uncertain had been splashing and gurgling nicely, so three minutes later, it also erupted.

At that point it was getting colder and windier, and it looked like the precipitation could start soon.