Grounded
There is a high risk for fog, ice and flurries throughout the forecast period. Deep convection and periods of heavy snow are possible particularly through tomorrow afternoon.
- from the latest report from the Mauna Kea weather centre.
I should be halfway up a mountain by now. The plan was to spend my first night on the Big Island halfway up Mauna Kea in order to acclimatize. I didn’t make it that far - the road was closed due to snowfall, and while I might get halfway up today I reckon the odds of getting any data are approximately the same as, well, a snowflake’s chance in hell. I like Hilo - the town at the foot of the mountain where most of the observatories are based - but really, the climate is ridiculous. They had 20 inches of rain in 24 hours, and it’s still raining now.
on February 6th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Can’t believe that weather, you needn’t travel halfway around the world for that! Is the observatory (I assume that’s where you’re headed) above the cloud line, can you do much in those conditions? Good Luck anyhow.
P.S. Love that opening line : “I should be halfway up a mountain by now” Scary said in response to your last post that you are at heart a poet, but that’s a novelist’s opening if ever I saw one!
on February 6th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Good luck, Chris!
Adam: I agree, to me it sounds a bit like something Heinlein could write.
(meant as a compliment, of course…)
on February 6th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Some dramatic pictures of the rain in Hilo: http://starbulletin.com/2008/02/03/news/story03.html
Good luck with the weather, and the run…
on February 6th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I’ve just seen the week’s forecast for Mauna Kea… I hope you brought some good reading with you!
on February 6th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
If I were you I’d sneak off round to Kona and enjoy some better weather
on February 9th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Hi Chris!
Last time I was in Hilo (a month or so back, working at Gemini), the crappy weather was in Kona and the great weather was in Hilo!
Hope you got some time on the mountain!
Carolyn Collins Petersen
on April 26th, 2008 at 12:07 am
[...] Hello from Tucson, Arizona, where I’ve arrived on the first Galaxy Zoo observing run. Unlike previous adventures on Hawai’i (which had mixed results), this is my first run on an optical telescope. One with a mirror. That takes pictures. I’ll be blogging the experience here and on the Galaxy Zoo blog, but to get some of the background head over there to read Bill Keel’s guide to what we’re doing. [...]