The cloud layer started at 590 m...
As we went to bed last night, there was snow falling at the station. The overnight accumulation was only 1 cm. Because of the snow and the multiple layers of cloud, Michael did not go up to the lab and the sky conditions did not really improve overnight.
As we drove up to lab, there was cloud in every direction we looked. Then we drove into one. The cloud blanketed the lab all morning then started to thin at lunch. With the cloudy weather impeding any solar measurements, all of the team members spent the day working on their data analysis. By early afternoon, there was enough sunlight peeking through the clouds that some people went out for a walk. Oleg, Paul and Annemarie went over to the next ridge to take pictures and explore. Tobias, Pierre and I went up to the roof to take a look around and then for a walk along our ridge to the inukshuk.
Aside from the strong winds, the day was positively balmy. When we left the station at 8 AM, it was -16 C and at PEARL was -9 C. Eureka was one of the warmest places in Canada today. We had temperatures comparable to Edmonton (-7 C), Calgary (-10 C), and Toronto (-5 C). Iqaluit was a sweltering +3 C. There were record high temperatures across Nunavut. Eureka reached -6.3 C (old record -16.1 in 1965) and it was -1.9 C in Alert (previous record was -16.5 C).
The winds came up this evening and added a little challenge to the ozonesonde launch. Heather (the MetTech) got a bit of a run with the Raven launch but it went up without a hitch. However, things were a bit strange when we got the results back. It appears that the balloon got to 7.5 mbar (31.6 km) but the ozonesonde stopped recording data at 106.8 mbar (15.4 km). Because we declare a winner based on the maximum altitude reached, Oleg won the guess-the-sonde-height contest with a value of 7.7 mbar.
Best regards,
Kaley.