The Little Piece of the World Called McMurdo

Not much new to tell you all about... we launched another ozonesonde (Sally Sonde) but no big ones yet. We are still waiting for the conditions to be right. Just doing my thing, I guess. There hasn't been anything fun in the weather lately either, just cold and windy.

Many of you have been wondering about McMurdo and how it is to live here so I'm going to take you to where I spend my days. It was finally nice enough that I could go outside for a walk around town. We stay in a dorm, just like college with tiny beds, a place to put our clothes and a desk. Thats about it in there... Here is where I sleep, my little piece of bliss:
The gang is all there, they keep me company at night. Our dorm is building 203c, it has a place to wash clothes and a lounge where we can watch TV, movies and play ping pong. This is what the outside looks like:
Another very important place is building 155 because that is where the galley is located. It is just like any other cafeteria. The building also has some dorms, the store and a hallway called Hwy 1 because its the most important building and everyone travels that hall. I'll get some pictures of the inside but this is the building.
This is Crary Lab, its the other building where I spend most of my time. It has three "phases" that are attached together. Our lab is in Phase 2 and I'll show you the inside later.
Next is the Chalet, this is the National Science Foundation building.
They have a medical center and the firehouse is right behind it.
Another place that I visit a fair amount is the "Gerbil Gym", its a little gym with treadmills and bikes. Its a great place to burn some energy.
Leslie introduced me to the coffee house the other day, it is a great place to go. It has wine, coffee of course and lots of board games to play. They also have a movie screen where they show different movies. Great atmosphere to read, visit and just relax.
There is even a little chapel on station. They hold services on Sunday, yoga during the week and other meetings too. Its cute.
There is also a beautiful piece of stained glass and it has its own Antarctic flair.
So that is a little tour of the station. I'll leave you with a picture of me by the McMurdo sign. Enjoy!

Oh and Lindsey here is a special picture for you from Mango. He said to "lick it!" :)

Heat wave!

Weather update for Lindsey :) The last couple days have warmed up considerably, -3F today and yesterday is was -teens. The blowing wind has been a bit of a bummer though. Last night, we got some snow too which was very pretty. It is weird though to look across the ice and not see anything because of the snow, just white everywhere.

Of course, we've been busy doing stuff. :) Sat night, the coffee shop opened. Leslie and I met up with some of the seal group and hung out for awhile, had some laughs and were just being silly. It was a great break. And we got to sleep in on Sunday! :) Later Sunday, we attempted another big balloon launch and everything was going great, the winds were low, the lidar was showing PSCs, the temperature was warmer. On Sunday evenings, they have a science lecture given by random scientists on station at the time. So we went and were going to launch after. (The lecture was great by the way, it was about "Snowball Earth" and is a very interesting subject.) But by the time the lecture was over, the winds had picked up considerably and we could no longer do it. We were all pumped about the launch and it was disappointing to have to put it off again.

Monday, we were able to launch an ozonesonde (Sergio sonde). Leslie and I went to Building 70 on the hill to run the computer up there. We decided to nickname it the love shack for S&Gs. We watched the snow come down and listened to the wind, worrying about getting stuck there. Sergio went the distance and climbed up to 5 mb. (Not like Suzie sonde last week). He was a floater too. We call the balloons that pop along the bottom "floaters" because they don't leak the helium out and just stay up there, hanging out for hours sometimes. Thats when you call it quits and leave them to do their thing.

Today, it is windy so we are all inside working on our own things. I'm finally starting to get somewhere but I'll save that for later.

Here is a picture of Building 70 where we get to spend hours watching data pop up onto a computer screen. It is located up the hill behind McMurdo Station. (The Love Shack)
Stay warm everyone!

Another week down

Well it is Saturday again which means I made it through another week and oo was it a week... We had super winds the first part of the week which means no launches and long days. Finally Tues we got an ozonesonde launched and then it was condition 2 weather. Cold, cold, cold, cold. Wed it was -50F and we were pretty sure that no launches were going to happen that day. We laughed about how crazy it would be to launch in -50F with wind chills in the -80s. Oh funny, haha. Then I went to go run the LIDAR (which I was planning on telling you about right away but this is a better story). So I'm rocking out to music in my office, its after dinner (7ish), I have the laser running, I'm looking forward to my shower and getting to bed. I finish with the laser and am shutting everything down when... I'm ambushed in the lab. I never saw it coming, it was like a gazelle in the Sahara minding its own business when the lion attacks...

Terry came in to see how I was doing... "oh I'm just finishing up" "Good," he says, "lets bring the data to have Mahesh look at it...the winds are dying down..." That's when it hits me... he is thinking about a possible launch tonight... its -50F and its cold, no not just cold, f**king cold. Ok, I'm thinking, this is bad. Just go with it for now, he's not going to find anything and its way too cold. Wrong. Things just continue to go downhill from there, next thing I know, I'm in the lab preparing an ozonesonde and they are getting one of the big instruments ready. So it was a big launch, not a small ozonesonde balloon but a huge balloon that is hard to hold and manage as it is. Then Leslie walks in the lab because she was in the room showering since we were supposed to be snuggling into our beds. She tries convincing him that it is cold. Nothing, we still are preparing for a launch. So its about 10 pm, everything is ready (after several things went wrong and had to be fixed) and it is time to decide if the winds are low enough and if we are crazy enough to do this. Of course the gods being against us, its starting to warm up and the winds are fairly low (warm as in -40F now). Damn... it was a little tense for awhile... then Leslie and I state our concerns about the weather and wind chill (-65F). This can't happen we say, its just not safe... Finally... finally we convince Terry this is a bad idea... crisis averted for now. So instead, we are going to get up early and decide see if we can launch it in the morning... oh warm bed how I love thee and don't want to leave in the morning...

6 am the next morning (Fri), Leslie and I up, ready and heading to breakfast, then the lab. We are going to launch this morning, we have some help today and the weather is warmer (-20s), winds are calm. Fine lets do this. I'm pooped. Ok, jam to Micheal Jackson, get pumped, dance a little, beat it, get the van, load up and head to the launch site. Thankfully, everything went well on the ground. We filled the balloon, which is heavy (and I'm super sore from holding it today), spread out everything, turn on all the instruments and "up, up and away". No we are not done, time to run to the van, drive up the hill and make sure the data is coming in. Ok, moving antennas, fixing wires and watching data for the next 2 hours. Great... until the balloon is not following the right trajectory and going too far north. Since this is a big instrument, it is one that we go recover eventually but if it falls in the ocean, its gone forever. So it falls, we don't know where it is but we have hope. We have to wait until morning to get an email from the instrument with its location, if we get one 'Yay its not in the ocean', if we don't, damn. Lets go get some lunch.

By this time, its like walking zombies around here and Leslie and I decide that its nap time. We nap, I take a shower since it has been 2.5 days by now and I smell really bad. Back to the lab, get some more ozonesondes ready. Ok finally dinner time and after one moment of panic that we might try to launch again tonight, its off to bed. Thank heaven!!

So here I am Friday morning, I'm super tired, sore and cold. By the way, we did get an email with the location of the instrument so it is not in the ocean and we can go get it later. Woo two weeks down!

Temp update cuz I want to

It is -48F. That's all I wanted to tell you. Still condition 2.

(About 5 minutes later)... I stand corrected, it dropped some more -51F. I'm not sure if the temp is really dropping that fast but it is Antarctica... Lets just go with butt cold.

Random Evil Thought of the Day

I was pondering... I wonder what would happen if you stuck your tongue to a metal pole in -45F weather??.... I need somebody dumb...

Still butt cold

It is still condition 2 weather and still very very cold. Last night the temperature was down to around -50F with wind chills of -95F. Right now it is -39F and wind chills of -72F. Just trying to stay warm...

My First Condition 2 Weather!

It is officially really cold. Temperature is -42 degrees F with wind at 28 knots and wind chills below -85 degrees F. Turns out the weather station on our building is calculating the wind chill wrong so the -104 degree wind chill before was probably wrong considering is was telling us the wind chill right now is -114. The -85 wind chill is correct.
It is normally condition 3 and if it were condition 1, we would be stuck in whatever building we were in and no travel to any building is allowed. Of course I had to go outside to feel it, so I did. I saw the signal lights (white for condition 2 and red for condition 1 (if you can see them)) and felt the cold and then went right back inside. BRRR!!