Thursday, November 2, 2000

The First Storm

Yesterday, I experienced my first Antarctic storm. It is amazing how quickly the weather can change here. One minute the sky is perfectly clear to the horizon. Then the wind picks up. The next thing you know the visibility is next to nothing. Like a sandstorm in the desert, snow is picked up and whirled into the air all around.

The pressure began to rise on the morning of November first. In most locations of the world, rising pressure means good weather. For some reason, the opposite is true here. As the pressure rose, clouds rolled in. The wind started to pick up, and by the time I started my shift at 10 PM, the blizzard was in full force. Winds gusting to 40 miles per hour blew the snow into a fury decreasing visibility to zero. As I stepped outside to take my weather observations the only thing I could see was white. The blowing snow hid everything from view and the ground was not discernable from the sky.

One of the interesting things about blizzards in Antarctica is that they almost always mean high temperatures. With the clouds comes moisture, which makes the air warmer. So it seems that a blizzard can bring somewhat of a heat wave; until you factor in the winds. With a 40 M.P.H. wind, even if it warms up to forty below, the wind-chill is still -110 degrees F!

To make matters worse, just after midnight, the station fire alarm sounded and it was announced that the alarm had gone off in the Rodwell, which is the building that houses the station's water pump. Being on the first response team I through on my parka and ran out the Dome through the garage arch toward the building. Just before heading out into the blizzard, I stopped for a few seconds to catch my breath. When I reached the top of the hill just outside the garage arch, a chilling gust of wind rushed perpendicularly across my face, completely taking my breath away. I was exhausted from running up the hill and now I could not breathe. I nearly fell over on the spot, but instinctively turned my back to the wind. I knew I couldn't make it to the pump house without catching my breath, and I knew I couldn't catch my breath in this blizzard. And if by some chance I had made it to the scene of the fire alarm, I would be too exhausted to do anything. So I slowly backed through the blizzard in the direction where I thought the garage arch would be. For a second, I thought I wasn't going to make it. Completely unable to catch my breath with the pounding wind, I slowly but determinedly trudged back to shelter.

When I made it to the unheated but windless garage arch, I immediately sat down and breathed deeply but for the most part uselessly. By the time I had regained a semi-normal breathing rate and was ready for another go at it, it was announced that it was a false alarm.

The alarm in the Rodwell sounded two more times that night, but again they were false alarms. Apparently the building is infamous for false alarms during storms. Evidently, when the wind blows so strong, it causes static electricity to build up in the pump building. Eventually, the electricity becomes so great that it causes the fire alarm to go off.

I was glad when that night was over and I was finally able to crawl into bed. My morning slumber was interrupted only twice by false alarms in the Rodwell. Just another day in Antarctica.