Wednesday 1 June 2005
Fun at -50C
Yesterday the temperature dropped to -52.6C (that's -62.7F). Even for Halley that's officially 'cold' as it only drops below -50C a couple of times a year, if at all. The lowest recorded temperature here was -55C way back in 1974.
There are plenty of fun and games to be had in extreme temperatures like this. First we repeated an old trick that we tried last year. When you throw boiling water into the air at this temperature it evaporates before it hits the ground. We managed to perfect the setup a bit this time round to get some better photos and even a bit of video footage (1.7MB AVI file).
The water forms little droplets which turn to steam as they fall.
After that Frances got her hair damp then went outside for that just stepped out of a salon look:
Who needs hair gel when it's minus -50C?
Finally, another one of the many Halley traditions had many of us going for a quick jog around the outside of the Laws platform - in the nude! Thankfully there aren't any pictures of that to show you - I can assure you that there wasn't much to see!
For anyone keen to try that kind of antics themselves, the trick is to jog quickly enough to avoid frostbite in your 'extremities' but slow enough to avoid a) falling over at all costs and b) inhaling the air too deeply as it tends to burn your lungs!
The weather screen showing the temperature for the streak. -57.2 was the 'wind chill' temperature which is the temperature it felt taking into account the light breeze.
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