WX CX

WX CX is some sort of shorthand for weather cancellation. I've been a victim of WX CX for five days now. Sunday I bag-dragged for my flight to WAIS...it's a process that everyone that flies via fixed wing aircraft goes through here in Antarctica. It involves packing ones clothing/gear whatever you will need for the trip and dropping it off with the cargo folks to be palletized and shipped to your destination. Now since I plan on being gone for two weeks I packed all of my underwear (about a weeks worth really) in my bags. Because I have been weather delayed since Sunday, I also have the same underwear as I did then.

Day one of WX CX transport was supposed to be at 09:00 so I slept in and didn't bother going to work. The flight was canceled by 08:00 so I sauntered on into work. My work clothes, etc were packed of course so I had to make due with what I had.

Day two transport was at 09:00, then moved to 15:30 and eventually canceled.

Day three the weather got wicked bad in McMurdo (previous weather problems were at destination). We had a full on storm with high winds and copious (for here) amounts of snow. Flight times were listed as "TBD" and eventually canceled.



However, this wasn't all bad as this was the day that the psych eval team was here so I was able to get that done for winter. It was rather ordealish. I may write about it later but to get a glimpse of what it's all about check out big dead place. You can do a text search on that page (try ctrl-f with most browsers) for "winter psyche eval" It's hilarious. Anyhow, I emerged with less than a warm fuzzy feeling about getting the 'nod' to winter over. It appears that I'm a wee bit outside the lines of what voodoo science sees as "normal".

Day four: All flights canceled. Laundry where I proudly used a full size washer to wash a pair of socks and a pair of underwear.

Day five: Transport at 17:30, eventually changed to "TBD" then "indefinite weather delay" then finally WX CX which is where I am now with time to post.

A little bit about WAIS - in a nutshell it is a deep ice core project. Samples are being taken to collect data on environmental change over the last ~100,000 years. You can read more about it here.