Weather: Beautiful clear, blue skies. Windy. Temperatures near -20F.

We just received our 3rd flight this year. Unfortunately since there had been south-bound pax from CHC earlier this week, we are now in level yellow… which I guess is what everyone everywhere in the world has been doing for the past 8 months.

I’ve also been bumped back from my original Nov 30th flight to Dec 12th since our 2nd 2021 winterover just arrived yesterday and we have many more days worth of work to get done (probably even 6 days worth of EHT training alone!).

Seems like at this point all of the grantees (science folks) are on the Dec 12th flight due to all of the weather delays this past ~few weeks. Hopefully that means that they will be very serious about getting us on the Dec 17th LC-130 north from McM to CHC (the last one for more than a month!).

For the next 2 weeks we will be hitting the ground running doing SPT turnover tasks and summer maintenance including lots and lots of greasing! Yay!

Weather: Beautiful, clear, calm. Light winds and cloud systems moving through with enough clear conditions to land a plane! Temps around -26F.

THE STATION IS OPEN!! IT IS OFFICIALLY SUMMER!

Seeing new people is weird.

Today was very exciting having a plane arrive and knowing it was the end of winter. Summer has now started and it seems as though winter is long-gone.

Some of these new folks will be wintering and some will just be helping out for the summer. Either way, we feel weird and awkward around these new people. Our stories revolve around a year no one cares about and no one experienced down here. Meanwhile everyone has been living in COVID-land for the past 10 months, so their stories are different and disparate from ours.

People are weird. But hey. It’s SUMMER TIME!!!!

Weather: Unseasonably warm, windy, cloudy. Temps got up to -11F today!

We have been delayed opening station for about 3 weeks. Generally South Pole Station gets it’s first flights in around the 3rd week of October, but due to COVID logistics and weather, we have still yet to receive a flight and are nearing the record late opening of Nov 20th (set in the Navy days in like 1956 or something). It really is an unprecedented year for South Pole Winterovers.

Current weather models don’t show much hope over the next few days, so we have to just wait and see. The difficulty of course being that weather has to be good in McMurdo as well as at Pole (for the ~12 hour round trip the Baslers take).

I have been scheduled to leave Pole on November 30th, but if our new winter over crew doesn’t arrive for a few more days, we might have to extend that until the December 12th flight out of Pole (which would then go northbound to CHC on Dec 17th). I think a 2 week turnover period would be short, but doable with our experienced incoming SPTers, but something more like 10 days is starting to push the envelope.

One good thing about all these delays is that McMurdo is now in level green (meaning they don’t need to socially distance, etc). So the first few flights into Pole will also allow us to remain in green which will make turnover and training much easier and more convenient. The confounding factor is that a southbound flight from CHC to McM is scheduled to bring pax in later this week… so McM will go back to yellow , and any other pax flights to Pole will then also turn Pole yellow.

While it would be neat to break the all-time latest station open record, it would also be nice to have our replacements arrive soon to start the turnover. People who have jobs lined up and have been delayed for ~3weeks are starting to get antsy! Luckily (or unluckily) I of course don’t have any travel plans and I work for SPT as a grad student, so the delays don’t affect me (besides family who want to see me again!).

It’s crazy to think that we will be opening soon. Some people have had to pack up their things and ‘bag drag’ (which is where you take your luggage to be weighed, and then they palletize your baggage). I couldn’t imagine having to pack already. Seems like this place is just my life now and going back to the ‘real world’ is just a thing we joke about. No-fly November is really living up to it’s name… but we will soon have new faces on station, and the real work will begin!

Weather: Warmer, with temperatures hovering around -50F . High winds most of last week. Sun, sun and more sun.

Welcome to “No-Fly November”, the eternal optimists least favorite month! Well, at least I know that I’m not flying until the 30th at the earliest (possibly later with weather delays). Next year’s winterovers and any summer staff have arrived in McMurdo a few days ago. They’ve been in level yellow during their time so far (7 days of level yellow for each incoming pax flight). Folks here are getting antsy and hoping for good weather on Nov 10th, when the first flight is scheduled to land here (the first flight in nearly 9 months)!

The USAP Basler and flight crew are currently finishing up their last few days of quarantine in Punta Arenas Chile, and will be transiting the continent to get to McMurdo sometime mid-week this week. They will then begin the 7 days of level yellow again in McM before flying the first of the Winterovers to Pole.

Last night, we had a bit of a ‘last hurrah’ with our crew. We hosted a “social undistancing party” , as we will most all be headed back to the US, where COVID and social distancing awaits us.

With my trip home nearing, I’m getting excited about being able to go outside, go on walks, and be back with my fiance. I still have another month here, but I think it will go by quickly with the 2021 winterovers Matt and Sasha here to train and hang out with.

It’s a bit weird to think that I’ve been here for 10 months. I can hardly remember when it was dark out (which it was… for 6 months)!

Whew, I’ve been slacking on these updates! Sorry!

Weather: It’s been fairly cold, around -70 to -80F with high winds (up near 20 mph) making wind chills well below -100F. Skies have remained relatively clear, despite the higher winds.

With station open looming only 2 weeks away people have begun getting antsy and the rumor mill on flights, delays and flight order has been churning. I’m not antsy because I know I have to stay at least until the 3rd week in November before heading out. I have to help train next year’s winterovers and perform the summer telescope maintenance that would normally be done by SPTers who come down for the summer.

I’ve been busy attempting to generate a schedule for training and to try and clean up some of the analysis code that I’ve been working on this winter.

One of the projects I worked on was looking at transient (short timescale) objects that show up in our maps. After the suggestion that perhaps these transient signals are caused by balloons (which might sound crazy here at Pole, but in fact is quite common — almost 2 balloons per day are launched for measuring atmospheric conditions and ozone levels, etc) I began to poke around at the data and ask the meteorology and NOAA folks about their balloon flight data.

As it turns out, 3 of the transient events were indeed co-located with balloon flights in both time and space, making it extremely hard to believe it could be anything else. To confirm this, we had to take GPS data from the balloons and pointing data from SPT, and correlate them in time. At the time of the transient events in the scans, the balloons happened to be in the line-of-sight of SPT!

Here is a video I made, showing the path of the balloon and the pointing of the telescope. At +-2seconds of the transient signal, you’ll see a red circle appear at the boresight of the telescope: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jYkyLkeCot8-tv2uqfThmpI9A4qBEBEw/view?usp=sharing

Because of this work, having talked a bunch with the NOAA person in charge of launching the ozonesondes, I was able to ‘help’ launch one of the large plastic balloons used to carry both the Met and NOAA payloads. I must admit, I don’t much like launching large plastic balloons into such a pristine environment, but it was going to be done whether I was there or not .

Here is a video of that balloon launch. Much thanks to Jeff DeRosa for freezing his fingers off and getting some pics and a video of me!

Balloons aren’t much of a scientific discovery but at least we know what some subset of our transient signal is caused by (part of a so-called ‘transient background’ which includes other non-astrophysical sources like satellites.).

All for now. Hopefully will update more frequently!

Weather: It’s been warming up. Today is a balmy -49C and in fact is a gorgeous day with very low wind.

No pictures on this update, unfortunately, but I haven’t really done too much besides work and run on the treadmill for the past few days. This morning I ran 20 miles, and for about 13 of those I was actually reading while running… which was not all that great, I must admit, but I think the act of reading was better and more thoroughly distracting than watching a movie, or listening to music. I was reading, and finished, Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild ; I don’t think it was the first time I’ve read it but it definitely gives me a bit of wanderlust. I finished up the other 7 miles by listening to some Garth Brooks CD that was available in the gym.

I spent about an hour and a half outside this evening, walking the final visibility marker line and clearing them off. I sat at the end of the markers for a few minutes, looking out over the vast nothingness and listening to the sounds of silence. The unusually low winds made it very possibly the first time I could actually enjoy the silence outside. I was far enough away from station that I couldn’t hear the exhaust vents roaring out heated air, and there weren’t any flags around to rustle even if there was some wind. The only sounds were that of the ice slowly shifting underneath me. It was calming, relaxing and peaceful. Alas, one can only sit on the ice at -50C for so long, even in full ECW.

And that was my day today, mostly.

Another fun fact about today (well, tomorrow for you Northerners in the US) is that the 2021 South Pole Winterover crew is beginning their long slog down to the Ice. This year is an unprecedented year for the United States Antarctic Program (and, I presume, all other Antarctic programs) because Antarctica is still COVID free so much care is being taken to assure that it remains this way. The new crew is flying to San Francisco, where they will be quarantining for a few days and tested twice during their stay. They will then board a contracted flight down to Christchurch, where they will spend at least 14 days in managed isolation at a hotel. If the weather on the ice cooperates, they will leave Christchurch in a Kiwi LC-130 headed to McMurdo. When the plane arrives to the Ice, McM will go into ‘yellow’ status for 1 week – which means social distancing, wearing masks, assigned meal times, etc.. If after 1 week (and no other incoming flights) there are no signs of COVID, McM can return to ‘green’ status, which as I understand it, is operations as usual.

Here’s the fun part,

There will be no on-continent LC-130s, so once the South Pole crew arrives in McM, they will be waiting for clear weather at both Pole and McM for flights in DC-10s (also known as Baslers) which are much smaller and slower than the LC-130s. Right now, as I understand it, the plan is to go to ‘yellow’ status at Pole for 1 week whenever we get a flight in. This means social distancing. At Pole. Boo. That would be no fun, and would present a challenge of it’s own (since we all live in the same building). It’s also no fun because the plan is to have flights coming in to Pole every other day for about 2 or 3 weeks which means that ‘yellow’ status would remain in effect for the entire month of November (which is our entire turnover period with our replacements).

One hope, is that there is a chance we might be allowed the following reprieve: If McM is in ‘green’ status before the flight leaves for Pole, we might allow Pole to remain ‘green’. Fingers are crossed that our incoming crew gets delayed a week in McM for weather, and by the time they leave, McM is ‘green’ and we can remain so!

1 Month until station open!

All for now.

Cheers!

Weather: Cold, clear and calm! Beautiful sunshine and low winds and cold temps around -90F.

The low winds have made running and walking outside very attractive these past couple days, so I’ve decided to go out along all the visibility markers and remove the snow from them. These are basically just giant plywood boards which are painted black and spaced every 1km, or 1mile for 3-5km depending.

Yesterday I spend 1.5 hours running down one of the lines (only about 7 miles round trip — but running over sastrugi is pretty tiring).

Today I took 3 hours and walked the long flag line down the runway (which is about 5 miles to the furthest marker).

I can’t wait till I get back up North and don’t have to fear for frostbite everytime I go outside! But without wind, it’s pretty easy to keep warm for long periods of time.

It’s also nice to get outside on days like these because it can often be windy and cloudy which makes it hard to keep the face warm, and generally unpleasant to be outside.

I also have a dinky little video that I put together from one of my runs (though it’s way too cold to film much of anything) and also shows me taking off my outer layers after the run — a good show of why layers are important!

Will upload here if it ever uploads to google drive :).

Weather: Sunny, clear, cool. Temps near -85F, winds around 10knts.

The sun is now fully above the horizon and will not set again until March 21, 2021. Having the sun back for 24hrs/day is nice and makes it easier to stay up, but harder to go to sleep each day. I’ve been sleeping from like 5-11am in order to be up for the good satellite, DSCS.

I’ve finished the “South Pole Triple Crown” which was an exercise challenge that included climbing stairs (approximately the height of Mt. Evereset), running the distance from the South Pole to McMurdo station on the route that the overland traverse takes (850 ish miles) and lifting the amount of weight in cargo that the LC-130s bring to/from Pole each year (1.75 million lbs). So I’m thinking about training for endurance running now… which will likely mean I’ll lose all the gains from lifting and be scrawny again by the time I leave here :/.

Well that’s about it. Sun’s up, but everything remains the same. About 2 months until I am scheduled to leave here and head back North. Tomorrow is ‘community cook day’ and science/IT has lunch, which means I have to get up relatively early (compared to my 5-11am schedule)… We’re making ‘gourmet frozen burgers’ ! mmm! But then tonight is community cook day pizza, which always ends up with some unique and delicious pizzas!

HAPPY SUNRISE!

The weather has been pretty crappy recently, with high winds, clouds and low visibility. It cleared up nicely for our Sunrise dinner on Saturday, which was a nice assortment of dishes from the original 12 signatories of the Antarctic Treaty.

Today, the winds have reduced visibility so much that you can’t tell where the Sun even is (though in theory it should be halfway above the horizon right now).

We now have only about a month and a half before station open, so they have started grooming the runway! It’s strange to see it again. We also have to begin cleaning other berthing wings in case of need for quarantine during the summer. The first flight is scheduled to arrive November 4th, though I won’t be leaving until late November (for winter-over replacement).

One interesting work-related thing I can share is our Jupiter maps. We observe planets in order to understand our beam shape on the sky, and what kind of light leakage we (light from directions not exactly where the telescope is pointing). The interesting thing here, is that we can see some of Jupiter’s moons orbiting Jupiter! This actually makes the beam measurement more difficult, so it’s probably not great for us, but it’s neat to see anyway!

Weather: It was very cold, clear and calm today. We got down to -104.1F today!

Sun is now at 4 degrees below the horizon and we can start to see a bright spot that looks like a real sunrise!