Just a lazy summer Antarctic day. This image was captured by Erin while on a guided tour of the pressure ridges (pileups of huge sea ice fragments) near Scott Base. Seals haul out to lounge on the sea ice near both McMurdo Station and Scott Base. (note from rph: thank you to Jon and Erin for including my spirit animal. Imagine my voice as the seal points vaguely with their flipper, never opening their eyes…..”….The meteorites are over there, gang- you got this, go get ’em”).
We have had relatively good weather during the past week at McMurdo Station. The high temperatures have been around 25 to 30 F, the winds have been light, and the sky has been clear. We felt very fortunate to have good weather during our shakedown and the optimal conditions have allowed us to take part in some outdoor activities around Ross Island. The local wildlife has been enjoying the beautiful weather too. One can nearly always spot a few seals lounging on the nearby sea ice.
Skuas enjoying the summer sun.
Over the past few days both Minako and I have become better acquainted with the bold and stubborn skua (…note I didn’t say “the noble skua”). While hiking on the Ob Hill loop at different times, we came across skua resting in the middle of the hiking trail. We do need to be good guests in Antarctica and that means keeping a distance from the wildlife. If you happen to be hiking on a trail and you can’t go around the skua because the terrain is too steep, then you just have to wait on the trail until the skua decides to let you pass. In my case, it took about 10 minutes before the skua got tired of glaring at me. I got the message that I was only a guest on their trail. Minako was lucky and didn’t have to wait as long. Thankfully, nobody in our group has been a victim of the nasty tendency of skua to snatch food out of the hands of people moving between McMurdo Station buildings.
Friday morning’s weather conditions at McMurdo and South Pole Stations. Cool and snowy at McMurdo and downright cold at the pole. We realize that the conditions we experience while recovering meteorites at the Davis Nunatak – Mount Ward site will be more like those reported at South Pole Station than McMurdo. Also note that the next sunset at McMurdo station will take place on 21 February 2024!
While that weather was good at McMurdo Station earlier this week, today it is snowing and the temperature is about 10 degrees F cooler than we have seen since arriving on ice. We get weather reports on the USAP intranet (see screen capture image) and at informational boards near the galley. We’ve been paying close attention to the weather here at McMurdo and at the Davis-Ward site. Because of safety, aircraft flying here need to have good weather at the departure site, good weather predicted at the destination, and good weather in between. We are counting on Brian and Amelia to be able to fly out to our site aboard a relatively small Twin Otter plane as soon as possible. The Twin Otter will drop them off and the two of them will camp at the site while they groom a nice smooth runway for the larger Basler aircraft. This will probably take several days. Those larger Basler aircraft will then be used to take the rest of us (and our equipment) into the field. So, the sooner a runway is groomed at Davis Ward, the sooner the entire team can make it to the field site. Brian and Amelia have been scheduled as either the first back up or primary mission for several days now; however, the weather has not been cooperating.
Flight status indicators can be seen on the USAP intranet and on monitors near the galley. We go to bed each evening seeing the image on the left – a Twin Otter flight scheduled to take Brian and Amelia to Davis-Ward to get our site ready. With that on our minds, we have sweet dreams of being in the field recovering meteorites early next week. For the last three days, we’ve checked the flight status the next morning and seen the image on the right: Cancelled due to weather at destination. We are hopeful that the weather will cooperate soon! (Note from rph: if you ever want to hear old farts complain at length , ask John Schutt or me to describe the accuracy of USAP’s “weather at destination” forecasts when there’s nobody on the ground within 300 miles of the site).
– Jon (from McMurdo)