The Big Chill

I've mentioned the '300 club' on here before...but in case you missed it, it basically boils down to going through 300 degrees of temperature change in a very short timespan. Tradition holds that the ambient outside air temperature must be -100(F) - I don't know what that is in cubic meters but I'm sure my Canadian readers can figure it out eh. So far this season we haven't reached that magic temperature point at all. Last year the temp got to -100 but only momentarily - not long enough for anyone to actually take part in warming up the sauna to 200 degrees and then run outside to the pole marker - naked. One of the folks from the MET department (short for meteorological I assume) made up this chart to give us an idea of the likelihood of the temp actually reaching the requisite negative century mark: (click to embiggen)



It's fairly obvious that there is still a decent chance of hitting -100 for the next couple of weeks and the current forecast looks somewhat favorable for going into negative triple digit temperature range on Saturday.

I have mixed feelings on the whole deal. It'd be neat, and if given the chance, I'd like to take part in this truly once in a lifetime experience but at the same time, running around naked and sweaty from a sauna in -100 doesn't hold a great deal of appeal...stay tuned.

Quote of the Season!

Saturday night the residents of the South Pole Station were treated to yet another live music show - featuring some local bands :). While most people were totally distracted, Todd burst onto the scene and declared "You've gotta see this!"...dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, I and many other folks followed Todd out to the nearby observation deck to see this:


It is indeed sunlight....WOW...I've always been a fan of sunrise, though I've never gone outdoors in a T-shirt in minus cold as hell at 9:00 PM to look at one. I've also never been quite so excited to see one - epic! It'll take another month before the sun is fully above the horizon at which point I'll promptly curse its everpresence - but right now it's really exciting - a sign of hope! oh...I almost forgot....the quote that went along with this observance. Owing to the frigid temps and lack of cold weather gear - Todd said "Now that was worth losing a nipple over!" and, indeed it was.

In other atmospheric news I woke the other day with a pounding headache and couldn't figure out what might be causing it - I hadn't been drinking and I was very well hydrated so what could it possibly be? Here's a screen cap that I got from our "weather channel" - the barometric pressure has dropped so far that the physiological altitude is a full 2000+ feet higher than the physical altitude - that would explain the headache.

Happenings:

Just a couple of tidbits of information about what's going on at The South Pole.

Last Friday we passed a solar milestone. According to our local NOAA representatives, the sun reached 18 degrees below the horizon which is the "canonical demarcation" (whatever that is) between dark and astronomical twilight (whatever that is). The take home message is that, in theory, we should have been able to see the faintest glow of twilight on the horizon. That theory doesn't account for high winds and obscured visibility. The moon has now returned so any faint glow on the horizon will be washed out by moonlight. The moon goes away again in two weeks and then we should start to see sunlight again with full sunrise coming sometime around 21 Sep but more importantly these stupid window coverings coming off around the 1st of Sep. YAY!

As we start to think about sunrise, the reality of rising temperatures comes with it. So far this season we haven't reached -100. If we don't, this will be the 2nd year in a row and the first time in the history of record keeping that S. Pole hasn't reached that mark for two consecutive years. The significance here is that lacking the -100 degree temps there will be no 300 club again this year.

Things in the power plant are going well. We're in the middle of preventive maintenance and repairs on one of the big engines. That should be wrapped up in a couple of days. There have been no major events and I hope to keep it that way.