We are finally at WAIS Divide!!!! They decided to reallocated the LC-130’s from the South Pole to try and get everyone out here and with TWO LC flights in one day, we got everyone (including our carpenters, electrician, utility folks that come out for about a week to get some of the general camp stuff set up after being winterized.)
Eariler in the week….
One of our Long Duration Balloon (LDB) Payload was finally able to be launched very early Tuesday morning after them having a significant amount of delays as well.
The A-132-M General Anti-Particle Spectrometer (GAPS) instrument is searching for evidence of dark matter through the detection of specific antimatter particles.
Track the payload flight in real time on this link to the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website: https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon6/flight759N.htm
On Tuesday, I finally got outside again for another hike. This time I went up Observation Hill. About halfway up the hill, is the remains of the nuclear reactor. For a decade during the Cold War, McMurdo Station was partially powered by a nuclear reactor, PM-3A, that was a small pressurized water reactor operated by the U.S. Navy from 1962 to 1972. Installed to reduce reliance on diesel fuel deliveries, it supplied roughly half of McMurdo’s electricity at peak operation and provided waste heat for station functions such as water desalination.
The reactor suffered from frequent mechanical issues, corrosion, and demanding maintenance requirements. Low-level radiological contamination was detected within the system, increasing operational complexity and concern. As diesel logistics improved, the nuclear plant’s costs and risks increasingly outweighed its benefits.
The reactor was shut down in 1972 and completely removed from Antarctica, along with contaminated soil and materials, which were shipped back to the United States for disposal. PM-3A remains the only nuclear reactor ever operated on the continent and helped shape Antarctica’s modern environmental protections.
Wednesday brought a change of things! Based on the significant delays, the folks out there at WAIS have been able to get the skiway groomed enough that we are looking to move over to LC-130’s to get us out there! The good thing about the LC-130’s is their flown by the Air Force, which has multiple crews, so the stipulation of having to cancel if the weather or otherwise is unfavorable at the scheduled take off time doesn’t apply. Additionally, we will be able to get some additional people out to camp that were going to have to wait for the next set of flights (the traverse personnel, carpenters, electricians, etc.). The bad thing is we will get driven out to the airfield and can possibly be delayed, delayed, delayed all day only to have it cancelled 12 hours later and have to go back to the dorms to do it all again tomorrow. However, at this point, any attempt is better than nothing.
Turns out we made it after all! I’ll be limited on photos going forward, since I have no way to transfer them from my phone or camera, but my supervisor does take some here and there, so I will share those for now and then share my personal ones later. Rumor has it we may get some allocated data over Christmas on the phones, but we will see.
Our flight on the LC-130 was pretty uneventful, 3hr 17min, from McMurdo to WAIS. Our Air Force Loadmasters even did a combat offload of all of our gear, which basically means they open the back hatch and shove our stuff down on the skiway while it’s taxiing at a high rate of speed.
Day one was hit the ground running! Had to get our tents set up, get more of the “town” dug out, melting snow for water, and finally getting to do my job!
My first ob!!!! METAR ZWSD 180550 31006KT 9999 FEW015 SCT030 M24/M28 A2862 RMK SDG/HDG
And then 24 hours later…..a lovely blizzard rolled in: METAR ZWSD 190550 26022KT 0200 BLSN OVC005 M19/M22 A2845 RMK SDP/HDN
I’ve been in some winter weather in my time, but this is wild! Walking to and from buildings, to your tent, to the outhouse….all an adventure.
The “blizzard like” conditions lasted most of the day Friday and Saturday, but going to bed on Saturday night the bad weather moved out and I finally got to see my first sun dog! (Photo at a later time)
On Sunday, we had to get everything cleaned up from the storm, as well as get ready for a significant amount of flights coming to/from us this week. My task today was digging out fuel bladders. Now, I’ve done some snow shoveling in my time, but never like this! This fuel bladders were about 5 feet down and a 50 yard x 50 yard square of hard packed snow. I worked on it about 8 hours (with breaks) before I had to call it quits. My body is already quite sore and my early shifts start tomorrow morning at 2:15AM, so I wanna try and get a bit of down time before bed.
So grateful to finally be out at camp! I do hope I will have the chance to share some of the photos of our camp and the weather in the near future.
I hope everyone has a great Christmas week. Looking forward to a lot of weather work early in the week and hopefully a bit of downtime over the Christmas holiday.
Snow shoveling like I can’t imagine! Hope your shifts are fulfilling and you start putting your scientific expertise to work! So glad you are finally on assignment as you hoped! Take care friend!
Thanks Anne! Enjoying being a meteorologist again! Snow shovel typically isn’t too bad and we always need water, it’s just when a big digging project in needed to get done since sometimes things can easily get buried until FEET of snow and if it’s from last season, it could be as much as 20 feet.