A (relaxing?) day at the station...
When we awoke, the winds had died down to about 25 knots which was a pleasant change from 43 knots. There was still blowing snow but not as much as last night. Luc said this was mainly because there wasn't much snow left to blow around. After breakfast, Don, Jobie and Al set off to check the runway and the road to Skull Point. It seems that the road was ok and the runway was "blown clean".
Jobie and Don also took the opportunity to erect a sign at the site where we had gotten the truck stuck in the ditch yesterday afternoon. I am not sure if "Pierre's Turnout" is a traffic hazard, a subsidiary road or a landform but it now has an official marker (a cardboard sign will be replaced by a wooden one in the summer). Also, Pierre has graciously agreed to pose for a photograph next to his very own marker.
Most of the team spent the day at the station working on analysis and other tasks that could be done remotely. Meanwhile, up at PEARL, Tobias implemented some new macros for MAESTRO and SPS which Clive had sent up by e-mail and Oleg and Paul went about their usual CANDAC maintenance duties. Once Al gave the all clear, Pierre brought Michael up to the lab to do the DIAL shutdown. When they returned, they brought Paul, Oleg and Tobias down to the station.
Now, according to some people, the reason for the storm was clear. It only happened because a plane was due to arrive this evening. Despite a good effort by the weather, the charter from Yellowknife did arrive in last night. The plane brought a new nitrogen liquefier (so we don't have to ship in liquid N2 any more), a new instrument from the NOAA SEARCH team (a polar-AERI), and Jim Drummond (the CANDAC PI), Peter Calamai (a reporter from the Toronto Star) and 4 members of the SEARCH team. They arrived in good time and settled in dinner and a little orientation meeting with Al, the Station Program Manager. Since the charter plane returning to Yellowknife will not leave until tomorrow morning, a little accommodation shuffling was needed to double people up for the night.
The winds were finally low enough that the MetTechs could launch an ozonesonde. However, they were still too high for a Raven. The Totex 1200 balloon burst at 7.9 mbar (31.2 km) and Tobias won with a guess of 10.0 mbar. Most of the ACE team was too optimistic in their guesses, except for Tom who had a value of 31.8 mbar. His guess did not amuse Kelly, the MetTech who had launched the sonde.
Best regards,
Kaley.