[Geysers] A good day up-basin too

[Gordon Bower]

I see a great many of us were watching this afternoon on the webcam when Giant erupted. (I didn't see it from the start, but enjoyed the view of the second half of the eruption while eating my lunch.)

For those of you who have read the Harry Potter books... the Mirror of Erised really exists, and it is this 600 by 800 pixel window into Yellowstone, for those of us who can't be there. Dumbledore was right when he warned that people had been known to spend their whole lives sitting in front of it gazing into it, instead of doing anything about making their dreams come true in real life. 

We are enjoying a rare break from the rain in Juneau this week. I have gotten to have a very pleasing pseudo-wilderness experience, sitting outside on my porch enjoying real-life forest and sunshine, while watching virtual Yellowstone courtesy of my laptop and wireless connection. You know you're having serious withdrawal symptoms when you start doing things like eating tuna fish out of the can on your porch instead of going inside for a proper meal, because it just "feels right" with the rest of the atmosphere...... and you don't want to miss any steam clouds by being away for too long!

In the late afternoon there was an impressive sequence of Geyser Hill eruptions: Lion 1735,  Plume 1737, Beehive's Indicator 1738, Beehive 1744, Depression 1746, and for good measure Old Faithful at 1752 as the last of the steam from Beehive was winding down. Several nice splashes out of Beehive's cone showed up in the half hour before the eruption, too. I was impressed how clearly the Indicator showed up, thanks to the cool humid weather.  I've attached one photo to this email since this I have neither seen Depression on the webcam before nor heard anyone on the listserv mention seeing one before. It was a nice 4-minute eruption, with three webcam frames showing nice big splashes like this one.

Plume has done very well today, with eruptions seen on the cam at 1459, 1646, 1737, and 1830.  I imagine one eruption may have been missed 1550-ish. (I  was watching the cam then and there was a Lion initial in progress - but it's not hard for the cam to miss any given burst of Plume.) On the other hand I was quite surprised to see Lions 108 minutes apart... has it been normal for the 2nd Lion to be this late this year?

The only thing left now for me to catch on the webcam is Plate: a few times I've seen a good puff of steam with a little water at the base in about the right place, but never in consecutive frames. Is Plate having a particularly bad year? I am surprised to have watched so many hours and not caught it, after seeing the other small geysers several times each.

Has there been any word on a central clearinghouse for webcam observations? I am keeping track of all my observations, refraining from posting here but comparing them to the times in the live reports posted and saving them for such time as there is an 'official' way to submit them in a batch.






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