It's cold here

I have been in McMurdo Station since Thursday. It was a very smooth trip overall. We did have to wake up at 3AM for the flight to Antarctica. It was delayed about an hour, but we got here, pretty much right on schedule. It is Sunday here now. I have been busy getting unpacked and getting the lab set up. Here is a picture of my lab space in Antarctica.

I have also been making all of the required preparations for going to the field next week. Before you can go to the field, you have to go through lots of training! I did my refresher snow school last week. It is a half day of training. The primary goal is to refresh our memories of what to do if we get stranded someplace. We learn what is in the survival bags, how to use and troubleshoot the stoves, how to use the radios, how to set up the tents, how to avoid getting frostbite and hypothermia. So far I have never used my survival bag, but I know what to do if I need it. Tomorrow we will get our sleeping bags and field gear organized. We will also learn how to drive the ATV and how to do our daily check-in with MacOps.


Here is a picture taken outside of the Crary Lab today. As you can see, it has been snowy here and there are many large snow drifts. It seems like more snow that usual, but sometimes it's hard to remember what the weather was like in the past. Everyone seems to be talking about the cold and wind. Right now it is -17C, which translates to 1F. The wind chill temperature is -22F. Yesterday the air temperature was about -20F, and the wind chill temperature was -40F. The winds have been about 20 miles per hour, so you can get cold quickly if you don't have enough layers on. Today feels balmy compared to yesterday!