Checking in from McMurdo Station

[Alan]

One week after the first storm, we had a second storm. Stronger winds this time, or at least more wind damage. It knocked out power several times (Nathan our lineman does an excellent job repairing lines, but couldn't quite keep up during the storm), tore some roofing off Bldg 125 (which is closed for the winter anyhow), and blew around an awful lot of snow. Of course, we have backup generators, and even though our aging buildings leak out heat and leak in snow at least they are built like tanks and aren't really in much danger from the wind.

Officially, we beat the old record that we just set a week ago - 20 inches for this storm, 14 inches for the last storm, and the previous record for a 24 hour period in April had been 10 inches. That said, while I'm sure the snow gauge is as good as they come, I'm not sure exactly what it was measuring - snow falling on McMurdo, or snow that just happened to be traveling through town. We got some deep drifts and a good bit of snow, but this 20 inches seems to have been less than the 14 inches we got previously.

Of course, snow in Antarctica is like sand in the desert . . . the wind might lay it down one day and pick it up the next. Frequently I see raised footprints above the snow, and today I got some good pictures of raised footprints on the ground. The wind laid down the snow, someone walked on the snow and compressed it where they stepped, and then the wind came along again and picked up all the unpacked snow, scouring the earth clean except for the foot-packed snow. Add a little snow forming in drifts around those footprints, and it's a rather odd looking thing.

There were also two small fires in the Fire House, which disrupted communications at a critical time. It made for an eventful evening.

[Paul Ward]

I used to love the raised footprints - I've never seen them any where but Antarctica. We used to use cross country skis quite a lot, so raised ski tracks were quite common too in suitable conditions - my favourites are raised dog tracks though:

http://www.coolantarctica.com/gallery/dogs/dogs1a.htm

Fires in the fire house! Did you make that up?

[Alan]

Nice picture of the raised paw prints.

No, I'm not making up the two fires in the Fire House.

I got more information today: an electrical appliance and the UPS that powered the dispatcher's computers. We had a number of problems with winds whipping around the power lines and causing arcing and the like - I'm guessing that it induced some powerful surges that set both items on fire. It may not help that the Fire House is a rather aging building with an aging electrical system too. At least the UPS managed to protect the computer from the surge, but they're not supposed to catch fire while doing so.

In fact, that's a general problem here. We have four buildings that I am aware of that are less than twenty years old. Many date to the 1950's and 1960's, and were built at a time when ideas like insulation were considered silly. The Fire House, for example, is a metal building with very little insulation, and many buildings have single pane, drafty windows. A few buildings have been retrofitted or remodeled to varying degrees of success, but the whole station suffers from poor planning - or, rather, NO planning - 50 years ago. Now the whole system has inertia, and it is impossible to change course.

Well, we're pretty much dug out now, but like you said - now that the snow has once arrived, it just keeps getting re-circulated.

I'll keep it short. Thank you for the fire infomation...The thing was also one of my favorite sci fi flicks, but it took place in the North Pole...James Arnes from gun smoke played the monster...
Have a great week.
Bill W.