The Local Weather Report- Brrrr

Being a teacher for over 30 years, I have always had a keen interest in the weather over the winter months as I followed the chances for a snow day. During our time in Churchill, I find myself visiting the weather website frequently, trying to decipher what I should probably expect in the upcoming 24 hours. The website used up here is Weather Canada, and the local weather station is located at the Churchill Airport. In northern Canada, the reading for windchill is more important than the temperature, as it is a better indicator of the kind of clothing you need to wear to keep you safe.

Given the extreme cold, the weather has been on everyone’s mind up here. On Wednesday of this week, it was -68 degrees with the windchill! That is a personal record for my time up here, but then again, I don’t get much credit since I stayed inside. Maybe I get some credit for being smart, though!

 For a short period during the extreme cold, every tree branch was covered in frost.

I thought I would start with some of the most common (and my favorite) weather conditions. The most common weather forecast up here, along with sunny or light snow, is a forecast for ice crystals. Some days, that is all the forecast says. Sounds delightful, but what does it mean?? Here is a definition I found on one of the weather sites.

Ice Crystals- A barely visible crystalline form of ice that has the shape of needles, columns or plates. Ice crystals are so small that they seem to be suspended in air.

Well, that is interesting, but not too helpful in figuring out what I can expect when I step outside. I can tell you a couple of interesting facts about ice crystal forecasts though.  First, you can expect to see great sun halos, moon halos, sun columns, and sun dogs.  Also, on a clear night I see surprisingly few stars, considering how little light pollution there is. Our director at CNSC was explaining to me that this is due to ice crystals in the air. In other seasons, there are more stars on clear nights.  Of course, we can see all of the major stars and constellations, making it actually easier to read the nighttime sky.

Sun Pillar from last year

Sun halo with sun dogs

In addition to the ice crystal forecast, sometimes the forecast is for ice fog. Look below for the definition of that. To me it sounds very similar to ice crystals. Sometimes it does look foggy out there, and that must be ice fog (if it isn't blowing snow).

Ice fog- a suspension of numerous minute ice crystals in the air, reducing visibility at the earth's surface; the crystals often glitter in the sunshine; ice fog produces optical phenomena such as luminous pillars and small halos.

Sundog at Sunrise

Snow sculpted by the wind

The other big favorite in the forecast is “Blowing snow”, or “Locally blowing snow”. Given our consistent strong winds from the NW,  the snow is often blowing. The forecast for locally blowing snow always had me puzzled, but I have it on good authority this year that it means blowing over the open areas. In Churchill, this includes the tundra, the town, the road out to CNSC, and really everyplace except the boreal forest. The trees block the wind and the snow builds up there. We are down to bare gravel on the CNSC driveway, but in the area with trees, it can be 2 meters deep! Wear your snowshoes for sure if you are going for a walk in these woods.

In the winter time, the high point of weather excitement comes with the word blizzard! Now that is a weather term we New Englanders recognize. However, the north puts its own spin on the meaning of blizzard. As I learned a few days ago, you can have a blizzard with no snowfall! Up here, it is a combination of cold temperatures, high winds, and very low visibility due to those strong winds. So, it is our blowing snow that creates the visibility issue, and the drifts cause all sorts of problems for any vehicle on the road. Wikipedia uses the term ground blizzard for this phenomenon, but I do not see that term used on any Canadian weather sites.

This is a photo from last year which shows the piece of equipment used to clear the roads. It's really a giant snowblower. When snow accumulates on the roads due to snowfall and wind, it is first plowed to the center, and then this machine blows it all to the sides. If they were to just plow, then the snow banks would trap more blowing snow and the drifts would get worse. This year they trimmed all the willow bushes along the road to CNSC, and the drifts are much less noticeable. It does not take much to catch the snow.

On Tuesday, the skies were sunny, and the air was cold. That was the prediction for the next 24 hours. Four hours later, we were told there was a blizzard coming, and it did! Even in New England, we get more warning than that. Not only that, we had another blizzard yesterday, this time with 2 cm of snowfall. We're waiting for that to clear out right now.

So, how about weather for the aurora? The most important conditions are clear, dark skies. Then, a little plasma from the sun zipping along in the solar wind would be very helpful!
The sky is clearing as of 11:00 pm. Perhaps there will be a delight in the sky tonight. Here is a favorite from last year.

Geomagnetic Storms!

Brian and I have been in Churchill, Manitoba for about three weeks. While you can see from my other posts that we are having some wonderful experiences, there have been very few auroras compared to last year. At the peak of my frustration with the lack of auroras,  a geomagnetic storm suddenly arrived to give us a spectacular aurora. There were ribbons of swirling light all around the sky. At one point, the movement became quite fast, and suddenly there were shades of pink racing along with the whitish green ribbons. It was an exhilarating experience, and it was not easy to fall asleep after the thrill of the light show. The photos below are ones that Brian took with his new fisheye camera lens.

The fisheye lens allows a view of the sky, larger than your eyes can take in.

I cropped this from a photo taken with the fisheye.This is actually much closer to what you would see.

In Churchill, we find ourselves right under the auroral oval. When we view an aurora in Churchill, it is most often quite a bit above the horizon. When folks are lucky enough to see the lights from our latitude at home (about 42 degrees for Mass and almost 45 degrees in Maine), the aurora looks like one giant curtain touching the horizon. That is because we are looking north toward our latitude of 58 degrees in Churchill. Here, we are often looking right up into the auroral oval, and at those times  you see a cathedral effect, or an oozing mass of light above you. In the photos, it often looks like a burst of light. This is all right overhead. Veils of light can also be seen to the north, south, east, and west.

Looking straight into the curtain of light

 Brian did a great job as the photographer on these nights. The fisheye lens was a bit tricky to focus, but we're learning. The other challenge on these two nights was the speed of the aurora. Usually, you have a longer exposure, but when it moves so fast, you get a blurry photo if you don't make adjustments. Of course, at the dramatic moments, you also have more light. The greatest challenge is trying to adjust camera settings with such extreme temperatures. At a windchill of -30 (sometimes more), it seems like an impossible task. Fortunately, the wind was somewhat mild on these two nights. Meanwhile, I got to just soak in the wonder of the two evenings, while the family photographer worked. I am enjoying the editing process, in the warmth of CNSC.

You can see the cloud cover starting to obscure the lights

 

In the photos up above, you see the old rocket range in the background. The top two photos show the view from our bedroom window, actually. The launchers were used in the late fifties and sixties to study the upper atmosphere. It is amazing to me that we knew so little, and learned so much in such a short span of time. Much of the aurora research happened in Churchill, extending into the next two decades. 

The fisheye lens is a good choice for capturing the auroral excitement overhead.

Tuesday night, an unexpected CME, a coronal mass ejection from the sun, sparked another aurora. This one was even more exceptional! There were arrows of light raining down, more ribbons (think of green ribbon candy from years ago), and a corona of light that looked a bit like petals of a flower opening. There was a cathedral of light all around us. Even better, I got to watch this from the comfort of our beautiful dome at CNSC.  I was outside for some time, but it gets chilly when the aurora surprises us with such a lengthy stay.

Here is the dome, which fits about 5-7 people

Stairway to the heavens

Last week, the full moon made it difficult to see the mild auroras around us. However, on Tuesday night, we had the thrill of watching the moon rise over the tundra pond during the aurora. Again, the photos are Brian's handiwork with the camera.

We savored every moment of the auroras. Now, we are preparing for a blizzard. Up here, that means a ton of wind and blowing snow, but not too much snow. I believe the next post will be on Churchill weather!

Auroral Surprises

So, we continue to be surprisingly short of auroras, due to clouds earlier on, now a full moon, and not too much solar activity. However, two nights ago, when we downloaded pictures from our camera, we found some surprises that we hadn't seen with our eyes! The camera catches more color due to the long exposures. I took the first photo on a night when the aurora had faded. I had gotten out there a bit too late (2 am). This was the middle of the night, and it takes a few minutes to get up and dressed! I was disappointed to see that the aurora appeared to be gone. I just pointed the camera at the sky and took a few photos to practice some camera skills in cold weather. As it turned out, the aurora had not faded entirely. See below. It was not quite as bright as this outside, but the moonlight reflecting off the snow covered landscape had created a fair amount of light.

  
On the evening after the full moon, Brian set up the camera to photograph the rising moon, thinking he would make a time lapse video. He did, and it is on his blog. Here is one photo from it, and lo and behold, the aurora was there!

Many people are disillusioned to learn that the photos of the aurora are not what the photographer might actually have seen. Last year, I was in that camp of thinkers when we first learned this. However, I have come to delight in the discovery of what the camera lens has seen and recorded. The aurora is there, and the camera is allowing me to see it. The camera often shows more definition in the curtains of light, so you can appreciate the movement of the waves along the curtain. The camera also allows you to see more height in the curtain. Having said all of that, there is no photograph that can capture the experience of standing outside under the auroral oval, watching the lights dance around the sky. The silence and the surprise add to the feeling of a unique and awesome moment in time. 

Igloo Building

One of the extraordinary experiences while visiting the north, is the chance to see an igloo, or help to build an igloo, or for the very adventurous, to sleep in an igloo! We now have two igloos nearby that were built by visiting groups, with much assistance from our CNSC director, Mike Goodyear. Mike has done this many times, and he is a very patient teacher.

Construction of the Earthwatch Igloo Begins!

The third igloo is in the process of being built by our Earthwatch team. They absolutely plan to sleep in it, three at a time. They are scrambling to get the igloo finished so that everyone will get a chance at the experience. The remarkable thing is that they watched a video called How to Build an Igloo, and then went to work. This link is to the video they watched, but upon doing a search, I discovered there are many others. This particular movie was created in 1946, and features two Inuit men. As Steve, the leader of Earthwatch said, "The technology has not changed."

Round One! Note the ramp for spiral construction.

 Yesterday afternoon, we visited the busy workers. One of the Earthwatch crew was cutting the blocks from an area which looked like a "snow quarry". The others were shaping and placing the blocks in a spiral fashion, which you can see in the first photo. This photo is from another igloo, but I included it so that you could see the ramp and spiral construction. It is all done with machetes and hand saws.

Blocks are added to the spiral, tilting inward.

Work continued throughout the morning, and was begun again after dinner. Around midnight, the crew stopped for some well needed rest. After all, this is their recreation time, not their work time. Breakfast is at 7, and there was a long day ahead of them to collect snowpack data. This afternoon, I went out to see what progress had been made. Check below for the progress made as of last night.  You can see there is an entrance now as well!

The Latest Progress with Entryway

 There was one more surprise for us. Snowhenge! Because of the overcast skies, the lighting was a challenge.

Snowhenge

Hudson Bay at the Town Beach

On our trip into town yesterday, we visited the town beach, which sits on Hudson Bay. Hudson Bay is a very large body of salt water, and it is the 2nd largest bay in the world. The largest is the Bay of Bengal.

Churchill is located on the western coast, which is an area of flat lowlands. Because it is so flat, the tide comes in about 2 miles, through a boulder strewn tidal flat.

In the photos up above, look for the high peaks in the ice and snow. O believe there is a large rock at the bottom of each one. As the tide comes in and lifts the ice, the area around the rock cracks, and water gushes up. The water freezes, and then the wind blows the very dry snow all around them. There is a lot of wind and blowing snow around here! Suddenly, it is a surreal scene of beauty. One of the guests told me this morning, that he thought the sea ice was the highlight of his trip.

Closer to the shore, there were many smaller rocks, and these had thick smooth coatings of ice, causing them to glisten in the sunlight. Yes, we did have some sunlight, finally!

At the town beach landing, there is an impressive inuksuk which stands about 30 feet high. If you saw our Christmas card this year, we included a photo by Jim Halfpenny, of the aurora over the inuksuk. There will be a separate blog entry devoted to inuksuit (plural of inuksuk). I think of this one as a monument of sorts. Usually, they are quite a bit smaller.

The auroras have not been frequent this year. We have had way more cloudy weather than last year, but our resident astronomer, Alan Dyer, managed to get some wonderful photos. You can look forward to a blog entry about Alan in the next week or two.

Earthwatch, a group of citizen scientists, is starting to gather. They begin tomorrow. So far, we have someone from Boston, London (and South Africa), western Australia,  and  the rest I have not met. These folks will be doing research on the snowpack and the treeline. I think this will be a future blog as well.

All Sky View of the Aurora from CNSC, with thanks to Alan Dyer

On Monday night, we had a spectacular aurora here in Churchill. Our astronomer and fearless leader, Alan Dyer, was out with his camera during the whole display. This was at 2 in the morning in extremely cold temperatures! What a guy. If you follow this link, it will take you directly to Spaceweather.com to the aurora gallery. I go there all the time, to check out aurora photos from around the world.

Earlier that evening, much of the sky was overcast, but you could see auroras even behind the clouds. I did some photographing, mostly to practice with the camera, the tripod, my new gloves, my red headlamp, and my handwarming muff. My biggest challenge is still focusing the camera and keeping it is focus. As our astronomer from last year used to say, "Infinity changes". I always liked that idea. Many people think you can just set the camera on infinity, but that just doesn't work, and the extreme cold will change things too.

Here are the photos I shared on Facebook yesterday. Considering the conditions, I was pretty pleased. Brian took at least half of these before I went out. The aurora faded away, and I headed to bed. An hour later, there was a knock on my door. "Brian and Linda, the lights are dancing!" And they were. This time, I did not bring the camera. So, thank you Alan, for the wonderful photos on Spaceweather.

Snowy Wonderland

It was Super Bowl Sunday, but this year the highlight of the day was an excursion into the boreal forest.

I believe the Inuit word for this snow frosting is Qali.

White Spruce

The boreal forest is a subarctic, mostly coniferous forest (also known as the Taiga), which is found in northern latitudes. It sits in between the tundra and the temperate forests. In Churchill, the most common tree in the forest is white spruce, and these trees are considerably shorter than the spruce trees back at home. In many cases, they are over 100 years old, so I guess they won't be getting much taller! There are also quite a few larch trees, but again, they are not very tall.

Snowmobile ride through the Boreal Forest

Komatik with easy chair on the back

We were driven out to the forest in a komatik, a big sled that is pulled behind a snowmobile. Up here, most households have one of these. In town, we saw a komatik with an easy chair sitting on the back of it! Most people in Churchill do not need vehicles, as there really isn't anywhere to drive, other than CNSC of course. Well, there are a few roads, but not many. It seems everyone has a snowmobile, though.

Once we arrived, Mike Goodyear, the CNSC director, did a demonstration of the scientific measurements taken to assess the snowpack. Next week, an Earthwatch team of citizen scientists will be arriving, and they will spend the week collecting data on the snowpack.

Henry offers to dig the snowpit for Mike

Mike Goodyear, our director

So one of our guests volunteered to dig the snowpit, and we took several measurements- depth (48 cm), temperature (-22C at the top to -6C at the bottom), density by weighing different layers, and types of crystals. We also talked about what animals use the snowpack, and how they use it.

Heading off to Walk Back

Now it was time for snowmobile rides and snowshoeing, but I decided to just take a walk through the forest and across the rocket range to head back home. On the way, I was treated to a bit of wildlife! I saw a large bird, about the size of a small chicken, with beautiful black and white patterns on its chest. When one of the scientists came by, she identified it as a spruce grouse. Check out the poor picture below- it was so well camouflaged, that I was having a hard time seeing it in the camera's viewing screen. It is right at the bottom. Then, check the internet for an image. It is quite a handsome bird. And, it was in a spruce tree! Imagine that.

There is a spruce grouse in the bottom, just to the right of center.

Even though it was chilly, there was very little wind inside the forest. The sky was overcast, so the photos look almost like a black and white world. It was just gorgeous, and made you thankful to be alive. As soon as I walked away from the group, I felt alone in the forest. Very serene.

More Snow Covered Trees- Too Pretty for Words!

In the snow lecture earlier that morning, Mike was talking about snow vocabulary. Where we might have a few words to describe snow, the native cultures of the circumpolar region (First Nation People, Russian, Finnish, etc) have hundreds of words.  I particularly love the frosted tress, with the thick clumps of snow.

Here you can see some definition in the snow patterns from wind

Churchill is pretty much a polar desert. They do not get much snow, and what they do get is hard to measure. An approximation would be about 100 cm a year. Because it is constantly blowing, open areas have very little ground cover, and the surface patterns look like the ones formed in sandy deserts. Once you go into the forest, the snowpack varies a great deal, but it isn't uncommon for some spots to be 2 meters deep. They may not get much snow, but any snow they get is around for the duration of the winter and much of spring. There is no melting!

Aurora Rocket Launcher, used to study the upper atmosphere

Once I finished my magical stroll through the forest, I came out onto the rocket range and made my way back home. In one of these photos, you can see the aurora launcher. There will be more in another post, but pretty much the rockets were used in the late fifties and sixties to study the ionosphere. The wind was with me once again, and it was great to get back inside.