As the sun continues its slow descent, the temperatures at the Pole have been dropping as well—last week they reached –40 °C (which also happens to be –40 °F), cold by anyone’s standards. Everyone at the South Pole station has been preparing for the upcoming station closing. The last shipment of fresh vegetables that they’ll have for a while arrived last week. Once the station closes, there won’t be any flights coming in again until at least some time in October. During the long winter, the temperatures and weather conditions prohibit aircraft flights in and out of the Pole—it’s an isolated existence for the winterover crew. The plane that brought in the produce served as an occasion for IceCube winterover Marc to do some more training on plane refueling, and he got to marshal an LC-130 once again. Last week also saw the arrival of the third and final South Pole traverse, there to offload the remaining fuel cargo for the winter and return afterward to McMurdo Station before it gets too cold for machines to operate safely.
