Antarctic Weather

[Written by Elizabeth Leonardis for our old blog, So Civilized]

This post is in response to questions about the weather  from Ms. Dunbar’s 7th graders on the New Jersey Shore,

Do you see a large variation from day to day? How cold does it get at night?  Is it difficult to wind down and sleep when the Sun is up all day?

When most people think of Antarctica they think that it must be unbearably cold. That is true for much of the continent, especially people living in the South Pole where mean summer temperatures are -5 to -31°F (-15 to -35°C). However, on the Antarctic Peninsula where we are living, the weather can be relatively mild and remains quite temperate much of the time. Our average temperature hovers around freezing, 32ºF (0ºC) during the day and night. That being said, the weather here can vary wildly in terms of precipitation and wind conditions. One moment in can be sunny with limited winds, while the next it could be snowing with 30 knot winds (~ 35mph). It can change in minutes. The only time that it gets really cold here is when the winds pick up. Otherwise, it is pretty comfortable.

Our zodiacs after a night of snow

The water temperature is very similar to the air temperature and doesn’t vary much from 32ºF (0ºC). One of the traditions here at Palmer Station is to do the polar plunge when the boat is leaving Palmer heading North. This means some of us that are crazy enough, jump into the freezing water. Alex & I both jumped and quickly got ourselves out of the water and into the hot tub. There is no way I would have jumped without the hot tub.

Alex doing the polar plunge

Elizabeth swimming towards the ladder to get out of the freezing water

Warming up in the hot tub after the plunge

As for the sunny skies, they are predicting sunset to be around 12:00am and sunrise will be at 2:23am tonight. However, even after the sun “goes down” it still doesn’t get dark and looks a bit like a cloudy day. Fortunately, neither Alex nor I have any difficulty sleeping while it is still light out, in fact we don’t even close our blinds. Unfortunately, for many, they don’t sleep as well as they do when there is darkness. This photo shows Alex outside with bright clear skies at about 11:00pm.

The evening sky