9 July 2011 A Summer Snow Storm Rolls into Summit, Greenland

You may remember from a previous journal that our old snow lab was collapsing and we were digging a new snow lab. The snow lab is important because it keeps our snow layer samples and the chemicals that we use to preserve them at a constant -20 degrees Celsius.

We would enter and exit the lab through the “rabbit hole”.

Once inside, people used to be able to stand up straight. However, as you can see by the next photo, the plywood roof to the old snow lab is sagging because of all the snow that has piled up on top of it.

I am glad to report that we finished digging our new snow lab yesterday and have transferred all the samples and supplies from the old lab to the new lab.

However, we still had a problem. If someone walked over the old snow lab, the plywood roof may have collapsed and the person could fall into the hole. So, we decided that we needed to remove the mound of snow that piled up on the wooden roof of the old snow lab and then fill in the big hole.

Here is a video of Hannah removing the snow that piled up on our old snow lab over the last month from the wind or from new snow.

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I really did help with this job, but someone had to film it. You believe me, don’t you?!

As we were working, the wind was picking up. By the time we started to back to the Big House, the wind was over 27 miles per hour.

Here is a short video clip of what it looked like as we walked back to the Big House.

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I hope the weather clears up tomorrow.