The last couple of days have brought cold temperatures, high winds, and lots of snow. There is no open ocean as far as the eye can see, and lots of high snow drifts everywhere. It is really starting to feel like winter down here.
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| April. Photo courtesy of Mike Rice |
The pictures above and below were taken by our comms tech, Mike Rice, from the same vantage point on the glacier above Hero Inlet. The first is from just after we arrived in April, the second from the last week in July. The change is pretty amazing, but there's even more snow now. The bit of open ocean you can see between the station and Torgersen Island in the July picture is no longer there. As I write this it's not really that cold, only -3F, but with a strong wind the wind chill is -34F. Nothing like the heat they've been having back in Boulder.
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| July. Photo courtesy of Mike Rice |
Steve, the doc here, found the photo below on one of the servers and sent it to me because he thought it looked exactly like the station does now. We don't know who the photographer is, or when it was taken, but based on the where everything is, the colors and positions of the shipping containers etc., it has to be within a year or two. But yes, this is *exactly* what it looks like here now. This was taken from up high on the Laurence M. Gould when it was at the pier. They must have had to do some serious ice breaking to get in! The last photo is from the same perspective in the summer.
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| Palmer Station in winter |
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| Palmer Station in summer |
