Lenticular Clouds

December 29, 2008

Today dawned cold and windy and we stayed inside most of the day, working on data entry and processing. Even hut days have their excitement, though,  mostly centered around food. I ate a cracker with a piece of 3-day-old halibut and Nutella hazelnut spread, and tried a freeze-dried “Pasta Roma” dinner from our survival cache. Both tasty.

It’s easy to tell when wind is coming to Cape Crozier. All you have to do is glance at the top of nearby 12,000′ Mount Terror. If a smooth, curvy, lenticular cloud is hovering over it, bad news. The wind up there is ripping, and, if it’s not already howling down at sea level, it probably will be soon.

In the afternoon we drew straws to see who would brave the elements for a dash down to the colony to retrieve a satellite tag from a returning penguin. In the end, I volunteered, since the hut was getting stuffy. It was nice to run down to the colony and back without a 40-pound pack, for once. Round-trip took me 43 minutes, including penguin-wrangling. The bar has been set…

A Lenticular Cloud Over Mount Terror