[Iqaluit - Day 9] Sun one day, snow the next

Today is Saturday, but it doesn't feel like a Saturday. Today in Iqaluit, we're experiencing snow and some wind making this a snow event. Mind you, it isn't that impressive of a snow event for we're only expecting 2-4 cm of snow today continuing into tomorrow morning. However, it is a snow event none the less and it is expected from us (being Robert and I) to do the weather balloon launches and a new task, taking pictures of the snowflakes using a high resolution SLR camera every hour. The fun just does not stop around here :P

Luckily, we only have to launch two weather balloons, one at 18Z today (2pm) and another at 06Z Sunday morning (2am). I already did the 18Z launch so I'm covered for the day. Robert will be doing the 06Z launch and it seems he's more than happy to do the late launch so I will not argue. As for the taking of the pictures, I'll be doing them every hour until 7pm, at which point I will call it a day and Robert will take more pictures when he does the 06Z launch. My supervisor, Ron Stewart, didn't feel that we needed to take pictures round the clock. Ideally in the end, I will end up taking 5 sequences of pictures while Robert will do about 3 sequences.

Now that it is November, more people are starting to show up in the weather office. Today we were 9 people, most of which are other distinguished researchers participating in the STAR project, including John Hanasiak. The arrival of so many people is tied in with the airplane from the NRC arriving yesterday. Much of the project will be accomplished within the next 3 weeks so it will be a busy place around here starting on Monday ... the same day I head back for Montreal :(

Anyways, I should talk about yesterday. Knowing that it was going to end up being a busy day today and the fact it was a perfectly sunny (but cold) day yesterday, I had decided to do a few more things I had planned to do/see. One of which was to go to the edge of the waterbreaker that stretches out a fair distance into the bay from the mainland. It was probably the closest to the water I was going to get while I'm here but I think it was close enough. It provided a really wide, unobstructed view of Frobisher Bay with the fishing boat out in the distance. The bright sunshine really helped in bringing out the beauty of the natural landscape ... as well as Iqaluit which was behind me.

Iqaluit as seen from the breakwater

Frobisher Bay as seen from the breakwater

After my little walk, I then had a chance to see the NRC plane .. .again ... which landed here earlier in the day. I previously saw the plane last winter (March) when Ron took our ATOC 646 class to Ottawa to see the plane at the NRC hangers and get a small tour of the facilities. It seems smaller this time around but I was assured it was the same plane. The plane itself is a nice piece of technology with all the latest atmospheric instruments onboard. This plane is capable of flying through a hurricane if need be (which would be so fun to be onboard for :D). It's first operational flight isn't scheduled until Monday so I may not get to fly through a storm this time around (unless I choose to come back to MTL on Wednesday instead of Monday ... hmmm). The plane is being kept at a DND (Department of National Defence) hanger next to the weather office where it will be maintained and fitted for various flights. What the people forgot to check was to check that the plane can actually fit into the hanger ... which they saw it can't (wing span too large)

National Research Counsil (NRC) airplane (note the size of the propellers)

Later that evening I went to this restaurant called Waters' Edge. It was recently built about 1 month or so ago as part of this new hotel that was built relatively recently and is located about 2 minutes away from our hotel. It was a nicely built restaurant and the food was really good ... which was a full rack of BBQ Ribs. Yes, I know I have to eat caribou up here but that will be tomorrow night at the Frobisher Inn (another hotel, but it's the largest in Iqaluit). The meal was 36$ before taxes which isn't terribly bad considering the same dish could run as much as 25$ in Montreal. They did serve a caribou dish and that costs 50$. It may be more expensive at Frobisher Inn when I go tomorrow night but I'll find out once I get there. I wasn't alone as my supervisor (Ron), Robert, John Hanasiak, and a couple other people on the project were also there. As a small tidbit of information given to us from our hostess, if you wanted to live up here, rent can cost you upwards to 1600$/month for a two bedroom apartment. Water, electricity and sewage is separate.