Nature disagrees

Well... we were all geared up to leave for Antarctica today, but nature did not cooperate. 

Dr. Hannah ready to brave the weather in her INACH gear!

As you can see in this image from the Chilean Navy, there is some bad weather over the Drake Passage between us and Antarctica! The light blue colors are light cloud cover or rain, and red is thick clouds and heavy rain.

Cloud top infrared imagery from the Chilean Navy Weather Service.

That is because there is an atmospheric river overhead. An "atmospheric river" is a stream of concentrated water vapor in the atmosphere. They can be thousands of miles long (but only a couple hundred miles wide), which is why they look like rivers in the sky. Plus, they can carry more water than rivers on land! But, the water is there as a gas (vapor), not liquid water. But when that water vapor cools (like after making landfall) and turns into a liquid, the moisture becomes rain. So there is wind and rain that have messed up our flight plans!

You can see the tail of the atmospheric river passing over Punta Arenas and down towards the Antarctic Peninsula in this satellite image from last night:

University of Wisconsin's Space Science & Engineering Center

Since we can't fly, we have an extra day of quarantine. We haven't left our rooms for a week, now. We have been able to get some work done. We have meetings to discuss our project over the phone. (We are living within arms' reach of each other, but we are in separate rooms so can't see each other in person!)

Dr. Becky, Dr. Angelica, and Dr. Hannah discussing very important science!

So, we have one more night in our quarantine hotel. Or maybe more! We get an update tonight.