[Geysers] Geyser report August 18

[TSBryan at aol.com]

As of my fairly early departure, the following took place today:
 
The two Plumes that were called gave an interval of 81 minutes.
 
Lion had a series of 3 eruptions.
 
Castle treated people with two consecutive minors, at 0654 and 1116.
 
Grand was at 0046E and 1110, for an interval of 10h 24m.
 
Oblong was 0634ie and 1207, so an interval of about 5 1/2 hours.
 
Daisy produced intervals of 2h 24m and 2h 15m.
 
See below for more about Grotto, but with it possibly getting "back to  
normal," Giant had hot periods as follows:
 
0759 -- d = 8m 25s, moderately strong. There was a lot of steam (the  
boardwalks were still frosty in shaded areas), but Mastiff briefly surged up to  4 or 
5 feet.
0907 -- very weak, d < 2 minutes.
~1005 -- bathtub.
1100 -- weak, d = 2m 26s.
1202 -- had us all a bit excited, d = 8m 20s. This one did not start real  
fast, but when Feather Satellite came on things picked up quite a bit. Mastiff  
was up and down and never more than maybe 3 feet high, but there was a lot of  
strong vertical surging in Giant, Cave erupted steadily to 2+ feet and etc.  
There was a pretty good restart at 1213, d ~ 3 1/2 minutes, accompanied by  
continuing surging in Giant.
 
This could be a function of Grotto fixing itself. Today was a weird day for  
Grotto. South Grotto Fountain was erupting all morning, playing about every 8 
to  10 minutes for 2 minutes or so. Typically, this happened between Indicator 
 Spring fills, which mostly were accompanied by _little_ action in Grotto  
Fountain (at some fills, G.F. didn't even overflow). Finally came an Indicator  
fill in which Grotto Fountain began boiling up 1 to 2 feet. Then South Grotto  
Fountain began to erupt again, but this time it was with Indicator high and  
Grotto Fountain still acting like it was going to erupt. Then the Central 
Vents  began erupting, strongly. Then Grotto started, slowly. Then Grotto Fountain 
and  Indicator dropped, and then Grotto grew strong. I called the Grotto 
start as  1148 (14 minutes before the strong Giant hot period). Note that Grotto 
Fountain  did not erupt -- if you're going to call this anything, then it was a 
South  Grotto Fountain-Central Vent start. As we say, weird is good.
 
Yesterday evening, Ralph Taylor passed out some sheets with the Grotto  
intervals and durations for July 31 through August 16. I'd commented here about  
the string of mini-marathons, and here they are. For the record and to  
illustrate the pattern, the durations are as follows (hours:minutes):
16:17
2:45
0:43
0:59
1:06
1:11
2:03
1:58
2:05
23:56 -- Giant, August 5 at the recovery hot period after this  eruption
1:54
11:27
3:18
17:49
11:46
19:22
11:31
8:32
1:59
18:13
9:58
13:46 -- this started at 1227 on August 16, so ended at 0213 yesterday,  
August 17. Since then
~2:45
short
today's eruption at 1148, duration to be determined.
 
Scott Bryan
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