May 2, 2018

Both planes today cancelled due to poor weather conditions (again!)

Typical view of the day.

Again today, the weather has been unsuitable for flying and working too much outside. Forecasts give us an opening on Friday, so we prepare for another day in a blizzard. Snowfall has been quite intense, and now there is a lot of fresh snow for the wind to move around. Another problem was that the American LC-130s were scheduled to fly to the U.S. on Thursday. After negotiations that lasted the whole morning; we finally reached an agreement that one LC-130 will stay behind and try to fly here on Friday (if Thursday does not offer any miraculous improvement in weather). The German Basler is still waiting at Station Nord. Anyway, we have enough to do. We would have built more Weatherports; but wind and snow is not a good cocktail for erecting tent buildings. We managed to get a lot of other things done, which do not require too long stays in the wind and snow.

What we did today:

1. Retrieved all food from basement under dome. Retrieved all food from ice core boxes on shelves.
2. Opened cooks freezer. Everything is fine.
3. Opened ramp to trenches and placed drilling equipment inside.
4. Satellite internet connection is now made. Local telephone system needs some more work.
5. Preparing to receive planes that never came.
6. Outhouse no.2 built.
7. Re-measured dimensions of all trenches. Typical compression of height is 25-30 cm since last August.
8. Mounting of ceilometer in progress.

Ad.7: All trenches had been trimmed in 2017 to allow for roof depression so no cabins are in trouble. Only exception is the core buffer, which was not trimmed over the shelf system. Some of the top shelves have been damaged.

Weather today: Overcast and snow and blowing snow all day. Temp. -19°C to -28°C. Wind: 8 kt to 17 kt from E. Visibility: Mostly 400m, sometimes 2 km.

FL, J.P. Steffensen