Condition 2 again

Well, today I am in town. Since Monday, it has pretty much been snowy and windy on and off. The weather was actually really nice earlier today, but then the temperature dropped, and the wind picked up. Then the temp went up again, but with the wind, who could tell? Then the snow started. And it really hasn't stopped since. Right now, every place out of town is under Condition 1 and we were under Condition 2 until about 5 minutes ago, when they upgraded to Condition 1. Someone told the dispatcher that they haven't seen it this bad in town in 10 years. Today my LT told me that it has snowed more in the past 4 weeks than it did all last year. No wonder we're so behind on cargo flights.

Anyway, it is midnight and I am still awake. We just went outside (it briefly dropped to Condition 2) and took pictures with the AFD mascot. The wind is really howling, and we just had a call for an odd smell in the Coffee House. The visibility has actually gotten better, but the wind is really blowing hard.


So to answer some questions...The skua's are a bit bigger than seagulls, maybe the same size as some of the ones down the shore in NJ. So far that's the only one I've seen, but more should be coming in later this month.

The plane just circled to see if the weather would improve, and when it didn't, they went to the Italian base (Terra Nova) and spent the night there. I did hear that the passengers on the plane that did land were quite sick. Several barf bags were used on that flight.

I can say from experience today (we were asked to wet down some pit they are making down on the transition) that when the wind blows the water spray back at you, it comes back at you as ice crystals. However, in one area in the pit, I did see some liquid water. But, when the wind wasn't blowing as hard, the water landed as water, not ice. Remember, these hoses are flowing about 150 gallons per minute, so the majority of the water comes out in a stream that doesn't freeze right away. There is a bit of lag before it totally freezes. Though, I'd bet that it does freeze immediately when it is -70F in the winter time. When we are going to have the engine or tanker outside in the weather for a while, without actually flowing water, we have to recirculate the water in the pump, which keeps the water moving (and therefore it doesn't freeze as much) plus the pump warms the water up a bit. The water doesn't freeze in the hoses really because it is flowing too fast, but it will freeze pretty fast when you shut down the hose line.

I knew about the glacial ice being blue from compression, but the ice in that pictures is the annual sea ice. It melts and reforms yearly. The sea ice extends pretty far, but I'm not sure exactly how far.

And now it is 1am, and I am going to bed.