Maybe the storm prediction was off by one day...

Richard B.'s perfect record of clear nights for lidar measurements has been broken. He had to end an hour early this morning because it started to snow. Now he is feeling the disappointment that the FTS team knows so well.

When we left the Weather Station at 8 am, it was a little difficult to see across the fjord to the mountains on the other side. When we got to AStrO, I went out on the roof. From there it appeared that world stopped at the closest ridge. It is the oddest feeling to no longer be able to see out into the great expanse of land that surrounds us.

There was blowing snow throughout the day at AStrO. No FTS measurements could be taken because we could not see the Sun at all. The DOAS kept measuring but Annemarie had to regularly clean a build up of blown snow off of the "dome" window. Meanwhile, Clive and Hongjiang worked on the automation of MAESTRO and Kaley fought with the PARIS processing software.

A little before 3 pm we decided to call it a day and go back to the Weather Station. As we left, Keith called the station and they reported that the visibility was about 1 km which was quite similar to what we had at AStrO. However, by the time we got down to the station, it seemed to be clearer than when we had left in the morning. The clearing progressed and it appears that Richard B. may have another good night for measurements on his hands!

The ozonesonde/radiosonde launch was one of the only measurements that was not interrupted by the snow. The launch was at 23:15 UTC using a Totex balloon. This was done because the winds seemed a bit high for using a Raven. The sonde only reached 12.9 mbar (28.45 km) mostly due to the balloon that was used.

Yesterday, we had visitors from the Weather Station (Charlene and Paul) who commented on the balmy temperatures we have been having at AStrO. Thanks to a temperature inversion, we are, on average, 15 degrees warmer than the Weather Station (-25 C at AStrO versus -40 C at the station). This difference should decrease as temperatures at the Weather Station increase over the next weeks.

Best regards,
Kaley.