April 29, 2018

Rough weather. Tough to be outside.

Karl Emil fetching a level for snow melter installation. His outfit and the bleak backdrop is typical for today.

Today, we were happy that we finished a weatherport yesterday evening.
Last night the wind picked up, and during the whole day today the wind was not less than 15-22 knots. It may not sound as much, but as temperatures never went higher than -29°C, it was really difficult to work outside with blowing snow and a chill factor well below -40°C.
Building more weatherports was out of the question. Instead we concentrated on improving the infrastructure. At suppertime Bruno had a real surprise for camp: We had cheese fondue for supper and enjoyed the moment.
We hope that weather improves soon, so that we may continue camp construction; but the forecast for the next couple of days are not optimistic.

What we did today:

1. Finished removing snow drifts around main dome.
2. Main generator moved into position and connected.
3. Cooks snow melter installed and in operation. Camp has now drinking water.
4. Main snow melter installed, not yet in operation.
5. Going through all electrical installations in main dome.

Ad.2: Camp is now powered by our 130 kVA generator and the main dome has central heating provided by waste heat from the generator.
Ad.4: The main snow melter has to be half full before we can connect it to the main dome water system.

Weather today: Overcast, haze and drifting snow. Temp. -29°C to -31°C. Wind: 22 kt – to 16 kt from W turing to N. Visibility: 500 m.

FL, J.P. Steffensen