The winds were blowing strongly, Casey citizens raise more than $5000 for charity, and quarterly water tests deliver pure results.

News from the Met team

This week at Casey blew by almost literally with a number of days seeing gale force winds which have an average speed of above 34 knots (63km/h) and at their strongest, maximum gusts topping over 70 knots (130km/h). This wasn’t all for the Bailey Peninsula; with a reprieve from the winds overnight Thursday bringing a weighty dump of snow that resulted in a snowmelt (aka post-snow or water) measurement of 32.2 ml, only 2 ml short of the 24 hour April record!

This was followed again by strong winds that now had plenty of snow to throw around… the perfect storm for building blizztails, which are large piles of snow created by low pressure on the lee side of objects.

Friday night saw the Met office munificently host Casey’s first winter workplace social event with our hunger being pleased by cuisine from our spectacular chef Donna and our thirsts extinguished with drinks from the station master of brew Andy and his ever vigilant team of helpers.

In an endeavour to remain or become healthy and to use our personal time for a little philanthropy, 17 Casey citizens united in a Million Meter Marathon Row (1000km) over two months to raise money for Huntington’s NSW. Although some rowers had to return home after summer, the team was up for the challenge and completed their objective with a week to spare, having collected over a massive $5000.

Fortnightly training sessions are held for the lay surgical assistants. Jacob, our met team captain volunteered as a patient in the last scenario.

Hydroponics is undergoing its annual clear out at the moment. It’s a huge task with all the tubs, pumps, beads, tracks, walls and floors being cleaned. New seedlings are starting to take off and everyone on station is looking forward to fresh tomatoes again!

Sunday was a very welcome sunny day and some lucky travellers got to go for a day trip to Jack’s hut. It was possible to go for a little walk around the hut to admire the scenery before heading back to station.

Quarterly water tests of the water treatment plant were undertaken this week by our resident met tech Dainn. To generate hydrogen, which is used to fill weather balloons for upper air soundings, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen using the ‘Hogen’. For this reason, the water needs to be as pure as possible and this is what the water treatment plant achieves by reverse osmosis. Very exciting!

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