What Does One Do in -40 Deg F Weather?

This past week has been extremely cold. One reading showed -56 deg F with the wind chill, and boy did it blow like crazy a few of the days. It's hard to envision being warm and just having come from Texas where the temps are still in the 90's. After trying to sleep in a room that was in the 50's, I finally broke down and procured a space heater for my dorm room. 

What does one do in this type of weather? Stay inside and walk briskly between buildings for sure. Here's a little view out my office window on a "sunny" day. 


Up on Observation Hill, you can get better views of McMurdo nestled in the snow below. Just taking these photos about froze my hand off.



McMurdo Below Dusted in Snow

I took a few tours this week of different departments. First up was one I really enjoy, Station Services. This includes areas such as food services, the galley, retail store, recreation office, lodging office, craft room, etc. 


One of many freezers


What's left of the freshies from the first few flights... mainly cabbage and onions!


These are boxes of meat being thawed with a heater above.

The baker making smores brownies that day!

Big pots for boiling

Team preparing for lunch

This year there's been a concentration on improving morale. More items have been brought into the retail store, from clothing, snacks, and better toiletries. Even more merchandise will come in on this year's two ships in the Jan/Feb timeframe.  Last year there wasn't even chocolate in the store, so I'm SUPER happy they have it this year. 


Clothing side

Toiletries, Snacks, and CHOCOLATE FINALLY!!

Chips have to be rationed. You can only buy one bag a day per the sign.

There're all sorts of operations going on in prep for all the influx of people in October. Miles of fuel lines are laid from the McMurdo tanks out to the airfield to support all the upcoming flights. Here's a cute, hand drawn sign as you enter the galley that shows the progress of the fuel line being laid so everyone at station can understand the progress.


6 miles of fuel lines have been laid out....almost there!



Fleet (vehicles) is one of the areas under my responsibility. As you can imagine Antarctica is a very harsh environment that is hard on equipment. I took a tour of the vehicles that are down and need repairs. It's quite an extensive list. Some equipment is so old, they don't make the replacement parts anymore. All the vehicles needing to be fixed or just so far gone they can't be are lined up in various areas at McMurdo. One is affectionately called the Bone Yard.


These broken down weight carts, used to help compact the airfield runway, looked like sad elephants to me.


McMurdo gets a lot of snow over the winter that has to be taken out of town and dumped constantly. These big yellow dump trucks are always on the move.

Taking the snow to the edge of town

Dumping snow


The time changed here this weekend. Currently, McMurdo is 17 hours ahead of Central time. As I type, it's Saturday at 7pm in Houston and Sunday noon in McMurdo.

This is the calm before the storm, as October marks the beginning of the summer season and an increase from ~330 people now to over 1000 in the upcoming months. 

Enjoy some sun and warmth for me out there!








Comments

  1. Mae TravelsOctober 17, 2024 at 12:31 PM

    You showed us the kitchen! I've been waiting for that.
    Great to see that you are back to work at the most obscure place in the world. I like to say that I read blogs from every continent.
    Have a wonderful stay. I'll be checking in. And I might repost a few of your kitchen photos if that's ok.
    best,
    mae at maefood.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

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