- Predictions are not available when the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center is closed, typically early November through mid-December and mid-March through mid-April.
- The last prediction made will remain up until a new prediction is available.
Thanks to volunteers, this webcam provides a streaming view of Old Faithful Geyser and other happenings around the Upper Geyser Basin—one of the most unique and dynamic places on earth, with about 500 active geysers.
Hydrothermal features are habitats for microscopic organisms called thermophiles: "thermo" for heat, "phile" for lover.
Static Webcams
View current conditions at various locations around the park. Images from these webcams refresh roughly every 30 seconds.
North Entrance and Mammoth Hot Springs
North Entrance - Roosevelt Arch
This webcam is on the park's North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana. It shows current conditions at the entrance with Roosevelt Arch in the background.
The arch became known as Roosevelt Arch after President Theodore Roosevelt, who was vacationing in the park, spoke at the ceremony to lay the cornerstone in 1903. The arch is inscribed with a phrase from the legislation establishing Yellowstone National Park: "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people."
Morning views from this webcam are spectacular, especially during the winter when the morning sun touches Electric Peak.
Look for wildlife—elk, bison, and pronghorn can be seen grazing here. Occasionally you may see the top of oversize vehicles—RVs, tour buses, and delivery trucks—as they stop at the entrance station.
Mammoth Hot Springs - Travertine Terraces and Parade Ground
Yellowstone is a place of change, and this view highlights a place where change is constant and evident—the travertine terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs. Terraces form when water rises through limestone, which then allows the water to carry high amounts of dissolved calcium carbonate. At the surface, carbon dioxide is released and the calcium carbonate is deposited, forming travertine, the chalky white rock of the terraces.
In the foreground are the parade grounds for historic Fort Yellowstone—the focal point of daily life at the fort. Each day began early with a bugler sounding Reveille. Another bugle call brought horse-mounted soldiers trotting onto the field for the flag-raising. Assignments were then announced. Troops either headed out to patrol the Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces and other nearby attractions, or remained at the fort to care for the horses. At dusk, the bugler called all troopers back to the grounds for the lowering of the flag, and the day was concluded with a cannon firing from the top of Capitol Hill. Taps was played as lights winked out and quiet settled over the fort.
Construction currently occurring at the fire tower. Construction equipment may occasionally be visible.
At 10,243 feet, Mount Washburn towers above Dunraven Pass between Tower Junction and Canyon Village. A fire lookout stationed at the summit provides a popular destination for day hikers, as well as housing for an employee who watches for and tracks fires throughout the summer. This webcam is located inside the living quarters on the top floor and looks out to the northeast.
This webcam atop Mount Washburn captures a south-facing view of the north-central part of the park. During summer, the webcam is often re-positioned by the fire lookout, and smoke from wildfires burning in the park may be visible.
Old Faithful, named by members of the 1870 Washburn Expedition, was once called “Eternity’s Timepiece” because of the regularity of its eruptions. Despite the myth, this geyser has never erupted at exact hourly intervals, nor is it the largest or most regular geyser in Yellowstone. It does, however, erupt more frequently than any other of the large geysers.
This view of the Old Faithful Geyser is captured from a webcam inside the visitor education center. At this location, time is not measured by a clock, but by this geyser. Visitors make decisions on when to eat, take a tour, interact with exhibits, or watch the visitor center film based on Old Faithful's next eruption.
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory's Webcam at Yellowstone Lake
The camera view is south-southeast over Yellowstone Lake from the cell phone tower near Fishing Bridge. Stevenson Island is visible within the lake on the right. The view extends down the Southeast Arm between the Promontory (low ridge rising from the lake) and the eastern shore. Above the shore, the acid-bleached Brimstone Basin remains white even when the snows have melted. The Absaroka Mountains in the background are composed of approximately 50-million-year old volcanic rocks that long precede the current volcanic activity at Yellowstone, which started about 2.2 million years ago.
Wind catches the over-spray from Old Faithful during an eruption and coats the dome housing for the camera with water, silica and dirt. Cleaning the dome on a regular basis in the winter isn't always possible due to freezing temperatures. In the spring, summer and fall, we do our best to clean the lens with available staff.
The camera is mounted to a lodgepole pine tree. Wind causes the tree to sway back and forth. This movement is most noticeable when the camera is zoomed in to capture a distant image.
The webcam has been set to operate in color mode as long as possible, even into low light conditions. When there is still enough light in the camera's view, even at night, it will continue operating in color view. When the light drops too low, then the infrared cutoff filter automatically engages and the camera switches to black and white night mode.
There are a couple possibilities here. On many winter days the steam from the geysers is held near the surface causing a foggy condition that can block the view of the camera completely at times. Sometimes there is a snow storm that makes everything white or grey.
This occurs when the park loses FTP Internet access to upload a picture to our server. Sometime it's a webcam issue when it loses power from a power outage. Try clearing your browser's cache and press the reload (refresh) button. If that does not work, please come back to visit later. Please know that when this incident happens or any webcam goes down, we work quickly to resolve the issue.
Your browser didn't update the photo because it was not the active window. When you first come back to a webcam after being away, press the reload (refresh) button to see the latest image. That will get the ball rolling once again.
If you are getting a gray or black rectangle instead of a picture it could mean that you are not visiting during daylight hours. There are no artificial lights in front of the webcams.
