Steamboat Geyser breaks historical yearly eruption record

Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park has set a new record.

At 10:47 a.m. Tuesday morning, the geyser erupted for the 33rd time in 2019. That breaks last year’s record for the most eruptions ever recorded in a calendar year by the finicky geyser. The record before that was 29 eruptions in 1964.

Before the world’s tallest active geyser sprang to life last spring, it had been quiet for more than three and a half years. Up until 1961, it was dormant for fifty years.

But, when Steamboat does erupt, it puts on a huge show, shooting 300 feet into the air.

“You have to be kind of not next to the geyser to get an idea of how tall it is,” Mark Wolf said. “You have to be kind of not next to the geyser to get an idea of how tall it is. You certainly get a sense of how powerful it is, but being further away you get a sense of how incredibly tall it is. You can see those shots jetting above the clouds of steam.”

Bill Beverly, who runs the Yellowstone Forever bookstore near the Steamboat geyser, says this eruption shot out a lot of debris and mud which coated cars in the parking lot, 500 feet away.

With just one exception, Steamboat has been going off every three to seven days since May 3.