Delays, Delays, and Delays

Delays are a natural part of working and living in Antarctica. Generally, the question is not if you will experience delays but how much of a delay you will experience. For those that have been following my Antarctic posts for the last two years, you will recall the 5 days it took me to get to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) field camp, and then a week later it took a week to get a flight out of WAIS. The delay in getting out of WAIS extended past my scheduled flight back to Colorado and I got home two days later than anticipated. Thus far, we have only been minimally impacted by delays this season. A key reason for that is because much of the work is accessible by truck and we've also had a lot of work to do in the lab. There is a good chance that might change this week.
There are a few trucks in McMurdo that are equipped with mattracks instead of tires. The mattrack trucks are able to drive on snow surface that are not groomed. We have been using the mattrack truck a lot as it allows us to bring the equipment directly to the install location.

Overall, a common theme throughout McMurdo this field season has been the delays encountered throughout the program. The start of the summer season in early October was delayed by four days in getting the first flight of mainbody to McMurdo. On my flight, the airplane was filled with people going to South Pole. The first flight of the summer into South Pole was about 36 hours after we arrived. It over a week to get the second flight to Pole and there has only been one flight since. There is a big field camp being established at Shackleton Glacier this summer. There are a number of scientists whose funded projects are dependent on this field season at Shackleton. The initial camp put-in staff was supposed to go to Shackleton on October 26. I know a couple people on that flight an I am still seeing them every day, some 17 days since they were supposed to leave. The weather in McMurdo has been fairly nice during the past two weeks, although some of the flights have been
cancelled due to the forecasted or occasional times that we have had bad weather. Mostly, it has been bad weather everywhere where people have been trying to fly, or difficulties with the airplanes and scheduling.

We have been waiting for the past week to install the instrument towers with the assistance of the riggers. For the first time we were on the riggers schedule and we were going to go out this morning and install six 8' to 15' towers at the two nearby sites. However, we woke up to the temperature around 0F, 20-25 mph winds with gusts to 30 and low visibility due to blowing snow. We did not get out today. We were able to have some good news with a few unexpected tasks being completed as an alternative to the planned day in the field.

I provide all of this background to say that the computer model forecast is showing rough weather conditions for most of the Ross Ice Shelf for the middle to latter half of the week. We are hoping to get out in 12 hours (Tuesday - McMurdo time) before the conditions worsen. I will say that I have seen in past seasons where storms like this that look like they will dramatically impact operations in McMurdo and then they do not. The trends in the forecast model have had the main storm system more and more to the east of McMurdo. The next few days will be interesting as the delays will either be further compounded, and resulting in significant impacts to our field season, or we'll escape with better than expected conditions.

I have a fun story to share from our visit to the two nearby sites this past Saturday. I'll save that story for another post in the next day or two.
Fata morgana is an optical effect that is common in Antarctica during the spring and early summer months. It is similar to a mirage in a desert except it is superior image, extended upward from the surface, and is the result of relatively very cold air at the surface.