Yellowstone National Park's Steamboat Geyser is the region's largest and up until 2018, it's also erupted quite infrequently, often lying quiet for years. But over the past few months it has sprung to life and now seems to be erupting somewhat on a schedule, at least for the moment.
Just after 1 a.m. Monday it sent boiling water hundreds of feet in to the air for the ninth time this year. Before this recent string of eruptions, Steamboat had been dormant since 2014.
"Major eruptions over the past several weeks have been occurring with surprising regularity (every 6 to 8 days)," wrote Jamie Farrell, Chief Seismologist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO).
In fact, its latest eruption came just as his article for the YVO's website was being published early Monday, right on time, seven days after eruption number eight.
Like most of its previous 2018 eruptions, it went off overnight, when visitors are not allowed to check it out up close. But it shot off for the eighth time on June 4 during visiting hours and Farrell was on site to witness it.
"If there was one thing to remember about the Steamboat eruption, it was the noise," Farrell explains. "The "roar" was just as impressive as the visual spectacle. Every once in a while, rocks (some baseball sized) were ejected with the water to astonishing heights."
Check out my colleague Trevor Nace's breakdown of how the geyser works. And if you want a chance to see the grandest geyser of Yellowstone, you might be able to plan around the occasion for the first time in years. If the pattern continues to hold, it could go off again sometime between roughly June 17 and 19.
Of course, you'll still require some luck to be there at the right moment and for the eruption to happen when the geyser is open to the public. Typically it erupts for around half an hour.
And just to be clear, scientists say no, there's no reason to worry that the Steamboat Geyser's increase in activity means the Yellowstone supervolcano is about to wake up and rock our world.
