‘Any improvement is temporarily’
Thomas is happily operating the snow blower in the soft and warm snow.
It is now definitely summer time at NEEM with today’s temperature reaching a maximum of -1.1°C. The snow gets heavy and sticky, but still we had snowdrift most of the day.
At midday the wind decreased somewhat and we took advantage of the improved conditions to remove some of the snow dunes with the Pisten Bully and made access to tents and trenches with the snow blower. In the evening, however, the wind picked up again and new dunes are currently forming.
Indeed, the weather forecast was entirely right in stating that ‘any improvement is expected to be short lived’. As next weeks flight period is approaching we are hoping for colder and less windy conditions so that the skiway can be well prepared.
What we have done today:
1. Drilling 69 cm sediment core. Total core length: 7.0 m
2. NEGIS: Weather improved, wind 10 kts, cloudy and warm conditions
3. Redistributing large amounts of snow on surface
4. Measuring two GPS stations
5. Moving science trench stuff to pallets
Ad. 1: Today’s core contains sections of clay, a 10 cm sand layer, centimeter-sized pebbles, and ice layers.
Weather: Complete overcast and snow drift most of the day. Wind 15-30 knots from SSW, relatively low winds during midday but increasing wind at night. Temperatures -1°C to -4°C.
Motohiro takes care of the snow and water vapor sampling and analysis in a yellow tent regardless the weather conditions.
Sverrir took advantage of the temporarily improved weather conditions to smoothen some of the large snow dunes with the Pisten Bully.
FL, Anders Svensson