At Pole right now it's a balmy (for them) -30F, windchill -53F. And for them, the sun is starting to set. Those of you who were following along when I was there two years ago might remember that that is a three-week process; only one sunset per year down there.
Up here at McMurdo, we're having daily sunsets right now, which is very beautiful. And kind of odd to have a "normal" feeling day cycle at the moment--it's light half the day and dark half the day. This is the first time I've ever experienced that in Antarctica! It won't last long. At the beginning of this month, we had more than 17 hours of daytime in each 24-hour period. But each "day" is about 20 minutes shorter than the previous one, so that by the end of the month, we'll be down to less than 10 hours of time each day when the sun is above the horizon. We're headed toward our own (shorter than Pole's) several months of total darkness. If you want to follow along with saying goodbye to the Antarctic sun, here's an interesting website: http://www.sunrise-and-sunset.com/en/sun/antarctica/mcmurdo-station/2018/march. If you switch forward to April, you'll see that our "Polar Night" will have begun by the end of next month (though I think it will take awhile after the sun stops making it above the horizon before we have no light in the sky mid-day; my weekly snapshots will be interesting around that time, hopefully).
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