One Watt !

Current Conditions
Temperature: -28F
Wind Chill: -39F

With only three days until sunrise, the mid-day light is becoming more and more like daylight. Today the photovoltaics (solar cells) out at Windless Bight measured one watt per square meter of solar radiation. Still a big zero for actual energy production, but one watt of radiation is a start!

What's even more exciting is the intense displays of polar nacreous clouds over the past week. Never have I seen anything more amazing. Thursday I stood on the roof of the Arrival Heights building and nearly came to awe-struck tears. Ok, ok, it was 30 below, blowing 35 mph and I could barely feel my face, so maybe the scenery wasn't the only factor, but I'm telling you, tears. Anyway, you get the idea, I'm not going to even try to put it into words, you're just going to have to imagine it from these pictures.

I took this shot from town on Tuesday at about 2pm:

This shot was taken by Dave Barud, 20 minutes later:

Town under a pink marshmallow sky, on Thursday from Ob Hill:

The chewy orange center of that pink marshmallow:

The real display requires a view of the northern horizon, which means leaving town, either to Hut Point by foot, or even better, from the window at Arrival Heights:

Needless to say, I've been spending as much time as possible up there. And just when I think I've seen the most beautiful sky in my life, the next day is even better. Friday:

And to the west, a backdrop for Salvador Dali:

It's unfortunate that cameras can't see things as the human eye does. They can't handle contrast, so the bright areas of a photo wash out. Here's a close up of one such area at a lower exposure:

So what you see in these photos as solid bright clouds, actually have a character all of their own, which is what really makes these clouds phenomenal.

This last shot is my favorite. I blended three exposures to get a more realistic representation of such an incredibly contrasted scene:

The wind was howling steadily at 60 mph yesterday at Arrival Heights. At times, blowing snow obscured the whole horizon. On the sea ice, I could see snow being whipped up into a frenzy as it was hurled westward across the sheet. It's probably hard to get perspective here, but those little islands in the lower right rise about 400 feet above the ice, so that wall of blowing snow on the left might be enough to hide, say, half of the Empire State Building.

Postscript: Brody just called and told me to step outside. Even as I write this, intensely bright nacreous clouds are filling the northwest sky. It must be time to check the equipment up the hill!