Auroras and Nacreous Clouds!

9/18

Around 11pm, while I was working on my paper, I looked at the aurora forecast, and it was predicted as high activity. So I bundled up to go for a hike to look for auroras. We were spoiled in summit station b/c there was no light pollution (we had just 2 outside lights, that we could turn off if we wanted). I could even see auroras outside my window from inside my room. But to see them really well, all I had to do was step outside of the heated living module and there they were. Here, there is lots of light pollution b/c the whole station needs to be lit to keep people from getting lost, especially in storms. So you have to bundle up, walk 30 minutes and hope your walk in the cold isn't fruitless. Tonight it was definitely not! I walked out to hut point and saw a nice aurora show. After an hour of being back, I headed back to the lab to warm up. I then headed up to the Scott Base pass where I got to witness a super amazing aurora show for over an hour. I wished I could have stayed longer, but it was approaching 2am, and I needed to get to bed, not to mention staying out too long in -50F can cause frostbite on the few areas of exposed skin (bridge of the nose and around the eyes. I was super bundled up, so was very warm, but those areas are just hard to cover up

9/19

Today after work we saw nacreous clouds. These are special clouds that really shimmer. They are rare to see b/c they need to be at a certain altitude the sun has to be low on the horizon and it has to be colder than a certain temp. The best time to see them is winfly, but I had never seen them before, so it was great to finally see them!

I went to a travelogue today by a gal who used to work as a weather observer in the high canadian arctic. It was a cool talk and the wolf pictures were really cute.

On Sunday we spring forward in time (it's spring down in the southern hemisphere). Something funny is that Carolyn was wondering what has happened to all her hours she's lost due to springing forward but never falling back. She's been going to the Antarctic for 8 years now. Everytime she deploys she has to spring forward with the southern hemisphere spring and then when we redeploy, we soon have to spring forward with the northern hemsiphere spring. She hasn't fallen back in over 8 years since she hasn't had a fall in either hemisphere for that long

Winfly and Auroras

9/17
Another week in the books down here at McMurdo winfly. Again, the continued beautiful skies! We did have one big storm roll through that was quite fun.
Work continues as usual on getting the lab ready, and then on my thesis after work. We have 1 hr for lunch, so I've started going to this dance thing for 40 minutes, every now and then, that Cassa Radawesum Grant's little sister (Kerri) hosts during lunch. It's using nintendo wii and you follow these dance moves and get scores and stuff. It's pretty fun.

It's been pretty consistently cold the last week. High temps in the -10F range, lows in the -30F range with low windchills in the -40 to -60F range.

Last night was saturday night. They had a big "winter is leaving" (in honor of GOT's popular, Winter is Coming slogan), but I worked on my thesis until late and then took a hike out to hut point to look for auroras. And I did manage to see some, which was cool! I got really bundled up since it was in the -60F range. I walked out to hut point, which takes about 40 minutes and then stood out there for an hour watching the amazing stars and the auroras and then headed home. I actually stayed pretty warm b/c I was fully dressed out (including wearing my gear issue bunny boots) and brought some handwarmers for toes, fingers, and chest pockets. But it was the kind of cold where you had have everything covered up. The cold makes your eyes water and often when I'd blink my eyes would freeze shut for a brief moment until they warmed up. But it created some thick icicles on my eyelashes.

crazy fatamorganas (mirages)

crazy fatamorganas (mirages)

after aurora hunting in -60F. Ice caked on the eyelashes

view out my thesis office

ice still on my eyelashes even after entering a heated building, walking to the bathroom, peeing, and then looking in the mirror

crary staff. I added the part about Linnah

view out my lab office