29 July 2016 Snow In July

A snow day, but no change to the day's schedule! Until today I had never experienced snow on July 29th. When you are above the Arctic Circle, the weather can and will change rapidly. Sometimes it is brilliantly sunny one moment and then incredibly foggy a few minutes later. There were flurries throughout the night as I worked with the box corer team sieving mud, but now the snow has bumped up a bit. Here are some photos of the white stuff as well as a current view of the ice that surrounds us. As we continue to make our way south and west, the quality and quantity of the ice is changing. Sightings of life above water have also been limited but last night/this morning we saw a pair of thick-billed murre floating behind the boat.

Notice the presence of more melt pools and less blue (older/thicker) ice.

Someone having a little fun with the snow.

Less overall ice coverage.

Question and Answer:

Announcement: Stay tuned for details about how to sign up for our PolarConnect event scheduled for August 8th at 6PM EDT/2PM ADT.

Question of the Day: The dumbo octopus and the sea spider were both pretty strange. What is the strangest creature you have seen?