How will the weather be at the lab...

The winds stayed heavy for most of the night and decreased slowly towards morning. Because of the bad weather at the station, Michael did not attempt to go to the lab last night. Bernie (the heavy equipment operator) headed up about 8:15 AM to "punch a hole" through the snow drifts so we could get to the lab. We followed at about 10 AM and met up with the snow plow at Upper Paradise.

The winds were much higher at AStrO/PEARL than at the weather station. Keeyoon and Richard M. were happy to see us when we finally made it up to lab. They had tried going outside to see if the weather had improved but didn't get much further than the landing of the stairs to the roof because of the wind. Much of the day was spent watching the wind blow snow up the ridge and over the lab. Because the anemometer on the AStrO/PEARL weather station is broken, we had to rely on an estimate of the wind speeds. Clive and Tom thought that the winds were about 100 km/hour which with a -30 C ambient temperature makes for a good day to stay inside.

Because of the winds, SAOZ did not get put into its roof hatch. The hatch and dome covers would have acted as a sail and made the operation very dangerous. Again, I hope that tomorrow the weather will be good enough to install SAOZ on the roof.

Clive finished fixing the Brewer and then Tom, Clive, Jennifer and I worked on getting the tracker and the instrument set up on the roof. The winds really made work difficult. You cannot stay outside for very long and if you get snow blown into your face it feels like you are being sandblasted. Jennifer and Clive completed the SPS calibrations today. The final activities were the wavelength calibration and filter wheel checks.

The DOAS continued to work in its dome. Annemarie started analyzing some of the data that she took yesterday. Her preliminary sunrise ozone column was 420 DU. This is in agreement with AStrO/PEARL being outside of the Arctic polar vortex.

I talked to the PARIS development team at Bomem and got some suggestions for what could be causing our problems. I did some tests and transmitted some data to Quebec City. So far the laser diode performance seems nominal. Tomorrow, they will send instructions for some more involved tests. Keeyoon continued to make N2O gas cell calibration measurements and started the analyses of the spectra.

Richard M. waited patiently for the Sun to appear from behind the cloud, blowing snow and haze that obscured it for the entire day. Maybe tomorrow the weather will be clearer and the wind will be lower to allow for solar measurements.

Today, Paul had some of the most challenging driving conditions of the campaign so far. On the way to the lab, we got stuck in a snow drift by the water lagoon (in the same place as last year) because Bernie hadn't started clearing the road until a bit further along. Then, on the way home, a hill 5 km before the station had blown in quote significantly. The truck couldn't get through the drifts so Paul and Jennifer started digging. Keith, Clive and Tom had another solution. Keith drove the truck part way up the hill using Tom and Clive as dead weight in the flatbed. Once Paul, Annemarie, Jennifer and I caught up with them, we piled 6 people into the back of the truck and Paul was able to get to the hill. Bernie went out after dinner to clear a path for Michael so he could get back up to the lab through these drifts.

I hope that we will have better weather tomorrow so we can get the SAOZ, MAESTRO and SPS all operating up on the roof safely.

Best regards,
Kaley.