You want some weather? You got it!

Well, I've been here almost one week and nothing exciting has happened too much weather wise. That was until when I saw the numerical models from 1200Z 30 October. It looks like that I'll be experiencing the first major system since I got here. For right now, we'll have modest warm air advection that will bring some clouds on 1200Z 2 November. This trend will continue and there will be a good chance of precipitation for 0000-1200Z for 3 and 4 November.

Towards the end of the run, the weather maybe a problem for our LC-130s (Hercs for short) to land. The Hercs can carry a lot of our staff and cargo (which also holds my other bag with clean clothes and shoes >_<). So if the visibility drops below 1 mile, the LC-130s can't land and they have to turn back to McMurdo.

For the uninformed, the time 1200Z is in Greenwich Mean Time, which we meteorologists live and die by that time. Also at the Pole, we go by New Zealand Daylight Savings Time, meaning our time is 13 hours ahead of GMT and nearly a whole day ahead of the United States. So this makes it troublesome to contact home or catch up on sports. One more bit of info is that the winds on the meteorgrams are grid wind, meaning a wind from the north is aligned at the Prime Meridian, a south wind from 180 degrees and a west wind at 90 West Longitude. NZSP is our station identifier.

I hope that you enjoy your weather fix for now. It gets a little hard to keep up with numerical weather model updates since we are allowed only 9 hours a day to communicate outside our internal sites.

Until next time.

It's been this long since the last post...? Made it.

Okay,

Sorry for the wait, but I did reach the South Pole at 1:00pm local time (Sunday night for most of you reading this.). So far, it has been two days and I'm adjusting to life at the bottom of the world okay.

The temps so far are around -50C/-60F, so I don't want to hear from anyone how they're cold. The extreme cold weather (ECW) gear does help a lot, so I don't get frostbite or any other things like that. It's just the altitude and dry air that giving me some problems, but I'll probably be over them in a week or two.

I'll be sure to get some more pictures at the South Pole eventually, but for now enjoy the view of McMurdo Station and a leopard seal on the ice (Yes, I'm positive that's not a smudge on the picture).

Late,
Phillip

Another leg down, now at the Great White South.

Okay,

Again, not as much time to post. I arrived at McMurdo Station in Antarctica two days ago and this is about the most settled in that I have been since I left home. The flight to the South Pole has been delayed for me, so I won't leave until Saturday at the earliest. I got into the cockpit of the C-17, which was a lot of fun and the other shot was McMurdo at dusk during the last sunset until February.

A long trip, but here I am....almost.

Hello,

It's has been kinda crazy for me over the past couple of days. I left Denver on Thursday afternoon, switched planes at L.A., then a 12 hour flight to Auckland and another trip to Christchurch. The last two cities are in New Zealand. The past two days was mainly getting around the city, awaiting the C-17 to take us to McMurdo Station. That will happen Monday, weather pending.

On that note, I'm posting this close to 10:00 pm on Sunday, which means that it's near 3:00 am back in Colorado, so I'll try to be kind for future updates to not to post at bizarre times of the day.

I did go hiking today and have some shots of the beauty of New Zealand. I hope you enjoy them (once I get the image posting figured out >_>.) If all goes well, in 24 hours I should be at McMurdo Station.

Cheers,
Phillip

First Post

Hello loyal web lurkers,

I finally decided to start writing a blog for the first time. I'm not too much of a journal writer and I might not have the most exciting life now, but things are going to change in the coming weeks as I have recently accepted a contract job to do weather observations for Raytheon at the South Pole. Sounds cool (okay, bad pun...:P), but I thought it would be better if I were to show you my tale over the coming months. I hope to hear from you and let me know what you think.

Phillip