The Plane has landed....

These are some picutres of the first flight of winfly as it landed. This means that new people are coming in and we are soon on our way out.

You know win-fly is almost here when....

These are some pictures of the runway lights. For those of us lucky to leave here in less than a week, seeing those lights definately put a smile on our faces. Those lights mean that the ice runway is almost ready and the planes will be arriving here soon. On those planes will be fresh fruits and some vegetables that we have not had for about 4 months, as well as some fresh new faces and friends that we have not seen since the station closed in late february.

Some really cold temperatures...

This is the weather forecast for today, needless to say today is going to be a cold and windy day as will tomorrow.

Beautiful Skies...

A few beautiful photos of some colorful skies as the sun begin to return to our small little world here in Mcmurdo Station, Antarctica.

As the sun returns...

These are some photos of the same place taken on different days to show the beautiful colors in the sky as the sun begin to rise again here at Mcmurdo Station, Antarctica. Each day the sky gets brighter and brighter and reveals some of the most amazing and beautiful colors you can ever imagine.

Landscapes, Ice Cracks, and runways......

These are some pictures of some more amazing skies and a burm with buildings out at the pegasus runway.

The makings of an Ice Runway...

These are some pictures of the Heavy Equipment operators starting to build our ice runway so that planes can fly in at winfly. Winfly begins late august and ends around the first or second week of october. Yes, that is not a typing error, planes do land on the sea ice down here, therefore the heavy equipment operators are always grooming the runway to make sure there are no bumps or holes in the runway that may cause any damage to the aircrafts.

Different angles of town...

Here is a beautiful half moon in Mcmurdo, a nice view of town from Scott hut, a view of the cross by scott hut, and a view of town coming in from the runway.

Balloon Launch...

The winter ozonesonde balloon launches are part of an IPY project called the ORACLE-O3 Campaign which is being coordinated by the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Germany. Nine Antarctic stations are participating in this research.
The goal of the ORACLE-O3 Campaign is to track ozone in specific air parcels within the stratosphere throughout the winter and spring. This campaign is similar to the QUOBI campaign of 2003. These campaigns are sometimes referred to as “Match Campaigns” because of the air parcel tracking methodology used. A computer model is used to predict the movement of the air parcels through which each of the seed sondes were launched and those parcels will now be tracked throughout the winter. Whenever one of air parcels is over any of the nine stations, another sonde will be launched to collect subsequent data on that particular air parcel, i.e. to match the previous data set. Thus data is collected through the season on the change in ozone in each of the air parcels. This technique has been used in the Arctic several times but this is only the second time it has been used in the Antarctic.
The balloons that carry the ozonesondes to approximately 30 km (100,000 ft.) are made of 0.3 mil thick polyethylene plastic and have a maximum volume of 19,000 cubic feet (~ 26 ft high by 37 ft in diameter). The payload consists of the ozonesonde which uses electrochemistry to detect ozone, a radiosonde for measuring temperature, pressure and relative humidity and a gps unit. The radiosonde transmits the data back to the receiving stations at Crary and Cosray for the duration of the balloon’s flight. The payload package weighs about five pounds.

A typical flight lasts about three and a half hours and the balloon will reach an altitude of ~ 30 km before bursting and coming back down. In general, the balloons travel out over the Ross Ice Shelf and can go up to 100 miles before bursting and returning to the ground.

As the sunlight returns, so does amazing skies

These are some pictures of the sykline down here in Mcmurdo as the sun begins to rise again. I cannot express how beautiful and colorful they are. If i wasn't here myself, i think i would have a hard time believing that these pictures were real.

More Auroras, and Me...

Here are some pictures of Auroras seen coming back from Byrd Island, And Me Playing the star spangle banner on bass guitar for the 4th of july.