It’s been a while! We’ve fortunately been busy with many flights and site visits! So this post will mostly be a photo dump of those site visits. Enjoy!
22 Nov: Helo to Minna Bluff
Minna Bluff when we arrived. The Taylor High Wind System was sort of in shambles when we arrived. It’s dangling off the top of the tower, the wind direction still attached to the mounting bar, but…The wind speed sensor was flung about 30 feet from the tower! This site gets very strong winds and is battered with snow, ice, rocks, and riming.We swapped all instruments on Minna Bluff, including the enclosure, and reinstalled the Taylor high wind system with a new wind sensor and reinstalled the wind direction sensor.
23 Nov: Helo to Cape Bird
This was a station checkup to make sure bolts and guy wires were tight, and to swap the data card.And see some penguins!
30 Nov: Twin Otter to Gill
Our first otter flight was to Gill to raise it with a 5′ tower section and dig up the power system.
1 Dec: Helo to Laurie II
We went to Laurie II to replace the batteries in the power system since they were getting drained this past winter.
2 Dec: Helo to Windless Bight
Windless Bight needed its requisite 5-foot-minimum dig out and tower section raise.
5 Dec: Otter to Emilia
We swapped the enclosure on Emilia, primarily to replace its pressure sensor in which it’s mounted.
7 Dec: Otter to Sabrina
Sabrina is one of our farthest AWS from McMurdo. We needed to raise the station, potentially needing to add a tower section. With the long flight (~3 hours, ~1000 mi), we only had 2.5 hours of ground time. Usually we need 4 hrs with a full raise, but fortunately there wasn’t much accumulation there since we last visited it exactly 5 years ago to the day! No new tower section needed. Success.
That wraps up our AWS service musings the past 2-3 weeks. We’ve also been working on getting our group’s weather display in Phase 1 (first level) of the Crary Science building back up and running. We needed to bring it back to Madison to upgrade the operating system. The display loops through a slideshow showing realtime AWS data, maps, pictures, and satellite composite imagery. It’s been a major work in progress getting the computer onto the network, getting data onto it, getting the slideshow to run, and even mounting the monitor on the wall. But it’s up and (mostly) running now.
Using the Wisconsin cart to bring the Wisconsin display up to Phase 1 to install it. Go Badgers!It works!
