Current weather forcast

Although everybody of the locals might be happy with such a forecast for our reasearch flights this picture is a bit frustrating. Fortunately the ECMWF forcast differs and predicts clouds above the Beaufort sea for late Monday and Tuesday.

Wildlife

On  a day without flying, we have time to explore the surroundings of Inuvik. Even up here, there is considerable wildlife. There are also moose, but all we saw of that was brought to us in a pot, hot and very tasty, by local hunter and guide Donald.

The local variety of the arctic hare

Female grouse/ptarmigan, in transition to summer plumage

Bald Eagle

Road Closed

Today we made a day off (with very nice weather) and six of us took the Dempster-Highway southbound. About 110 km south of Inuvik the "Highway" crosses the frozen river.

But the ice river crossing was already closed because of the warm temperatures. And for good reaosn, as I found out when I sank through the snow and found out that there is indeed liquid (but ice cold) water underneath. My tennis shoes and socks were soaked!

Inuvik vs. Leipzig

After flight on May 10th the big melting started

Thursday was temporalily the last flight for the next days. Since yesterday spring has started in Inuvik. Everything melts, ponds an small lakes are filling up, cars and other things appear again below the melting snow. Unfortunately the temperatures are above zero as well in the altitude levels of potential clouds. This means, there is defenitely no ice in this clouds. That's why we decided to have a break and wait for colder temperatures before having further flights. From Monday conditions are predicted to improve. Until then we hope to reassamble all instruments on board of Polar 5. The repaired 115V-inverters will be installed again and hopefully the CAS-DPOL will arrive everyday that we can start the last week of measurements with full strength.   

A short recapture of Thursdays flight. Again we probed low level clouds above the beaufort sea. Close to the coast we also observed a second higher cloud layer which we intended to probe on our way back. Unfortunately these clouds almost have cleared away when we arrived. Only a small fraction could be probed. The low level showed up to be thicker than the days before. The icing was heavier forcing us to leave cloud top before the probing was complete. After letting the ice melt in the sun the last remaining probing level could be repeated. 

Home cooking

In preparation for the incredibly expensive food (e.g., 1l milk=3 $), one box of basic food supply was send to Inuvik. Most of us are cooking now in the kitchens of our row houses. Only pasta seems not to be welcome anymore. Or someone just miscalculated the demand on noodles. These are 2kg packs!

With everyone being filled up the next flight is planned for tomorrow before the temperatures increase above freezing point. Unfortunately this is unfavorable for the ice crystals we are looking for.

Flight on May 8

This was my first research flight on the Polar 5. We thought we had the ALABAMA mass spectrometer repaired, but in flight some new problems came up, so I had a lot do to with the instrument. In the end I did not record more then 3 (!) mass spectra, which is close to nothing. However, we think that we fixed some problems after the flight and on the next day, so there is still hope. As far as I heard, all the other instruments worked well.

De-icing required

The snowfall during the night and temperatures around zero show up to be a bigger problem for todays flight than expected. Polar 5 was covered with a thin ice film which made a de-icing of the entire wings neccessary. This delayed the planed take off about 1 1/2 hours. Fortunately the cloud situation did not change dramatically during this time, as seen from the ground. Now we have to wait what the crew will report after coming back from the flight.

No flight today, but lots of snow

The cloud situation was not very promising today. So we decided to spend another day to work on some instrument issues and wait for long-awaited spare parts. The local weather was not good either. Snow during the whole day. Everybody was reminded of christmas time. Even the Dempster highway was covered by snow again. In the forest close to the Dempster we could find a lot of large Bigfoot traces. Maybe worth to be published in Nature or Science.