Steamboat Geyser, the world's tallest active geyser, has been mostly inactive in 2025. After several years of frequent but unpredictable eruptions, the geyser in Yellowstone National Park's Norris Geyser Basin has only erupted twice this year.
Steamboat Geyser could erupt tomorrow, next week or next year. It might also not erupt again for decades, as has happened in the past.
There's still steam rising from Steamboat, but everything indicates that the world’s tallest geyser has, somehow, lost its steam. It's always kept its own schedule, so nobody can be certain when it'll go again.
Breaking Its Own Pattern
The last major eruption of Steamboat Geyser, which sent water 300 feet into the air, occurred on April 14.
It's been more than 230 days since the previous eruption.
Steamboat has gone much longer without a major eruption, but there's something different about the ongoing lull.
Mike Poland, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, said the geyser appears to have ceased exhibiting one of its only predictable behaviors.
"In the past, we would see a buildup of minor activity that would culminate in a major eruption," he told Cowboy State Daily. "Now, we're not seeing those minor eruptions lead to anything. There's a period of minor activity, then it might go quiet for a while, then a period of minor activity, and it'll go quiet again."
That's a notable difference for scientists who've dedicated their careers to studying Yellowstone's geysers and hydrothermal systems. If there's an explanation for this change in behavior, Poland and his team haven't been able to pinpoint it.
"It could be mineral precipitation clogging up some of the vents, or whatever was heating the water might have migrated somewhere else," he said. "It's still an active system, but it's broken the pattern that it had when it was actively erupting."
Steamboat does this. All expectations were exceeded when the geyser erupted 32 times in 2018 and 48 times in 2019 and 2020. Since then, eruptions have become less frequent with each passing year: 11 eruptions in 2022, nine in 2023, and six in 2024.
Before 2018, the most recent eruption of Steamboat occurred three years and 193 days earlier on March 15, 2014. Between 1991 and 2000, the geyser only erupted once.
Steamboat isn't faithful, like Old Faithful. Its unpredictability makes it one of the most dynamic thermal features in Yellowstone, at least from a scientific perspective.
"We don't understand how geysers like this work, but it's not uncommon for Yellowstone geysers to do exactly this," Poland said. "They go through periods where they're more active, and then they basically go to sleep."
The Silent Generation
Steamboat Geyser has experienced multiple active and dormant periods since the documentation of eruptions started in 1878. Similar patterns, in which the geyser frequently erupted for a short period before quieting down and erupting only once every few years, were observed in the 1960s and the 1980s.
The geyser has also gone much longer without any major eruptions. Poland noted that between 1911 and 1961, there wasn't a single recorded major eruption.
"That's 50 years with no major eruptions, and eruptions were very sporadic before and since," he said.
Is it possible there won't be another major Steamboat eruption for half a century? According to Poland, it's possible, but it'd be unusual, even by Steamboat standards.
"In the short history we have for Steamboat, it's strange for it to go decades without an eruption," he said. "Even when it's less active, it might erupt once every year or every few years. I would say the sequence of frequent, predictable eruptions is probably over."
Back To The Old Normal
While decades could pass without a major eruption of Steamboat Geyser, Poland and his peers aren't too flustered about it. Everything they've seen is within "the normal pattern" for the world's tallest geyser.
"It might have broken its recent pattern, but it's still within its normal pattern of frequent and less frequent eruptions," he said.
The Norris Geyser Basin, where Steamboat resides, is the most changeable thermal basin in Yellowstone. It's known for the dynamic nature of its geysers, mudpots, and fumaroles, which frequently change behavior and occasionally transition into different types of thermal features.
On Dec. 25, 2024, a new hot spring appeared in the Porcelain Basin area of Norris. Volcanologists believe it was created by a hydrothermal explosion, similar to the one that occurred at Black Diamond Pool earlier that year, but on a much smaller scale.
Sometimes, Yellowstone's geysers go dormant. They might suddenly spring to life after decades of nothing, like Excelsior Geyser in January 2024, or they can become completely inert and inactive as the subterranean plumbing systems feeding water into their vents dries out, gets blown up, or is rerouted.
Despite the lack of major eruptions in 2025, Poland said there are no indications that Steamboat Geyser has gone dormant. There's still steam rising from its vent, and the plethora of monitoring equipment in the Norris Geyser Basin shows that it is still an active system.
"There's something special about working in (Norris) and knowing it well enough," he said. "Steamboat might erupt within the next few days, but now we know that using the pattern that indicated an imminent major eruption isn't going to be possible anymore. It's unpredictable, but that's its normal pattern."
Contact Andrew Rossi at andrew@cowboystatedaily.com
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
