After a successful summer season, we now progress towards winter at McMurdo station. We had 3 months of difficult refurbishment from November to February, and we’re now hoping for quality data as we approach the winter season.

While the Lidar systems are still having issues, Jess has done an excellent job of troubleshooting and keeping the lasers alive for winter. We have taken numerous 24-48 hour periods of data, and even an extended 6.5 day Lidar run!

We’re in the equivalent of fall here at McMurdo. There are no leaves changing colors or falling, but you can feel the transition from summer to winter in the changing habits of the sun. Our first sunset was February 21st, when the sun just barely dipped below the horizon. Since then, the golden hour has gotten longer and longer until finally it diverged into a sunset and a sunrise. We saw the first stars we had seen in 5 months. The time between sunset and sunrise slowly grew until now, in early April, where we are seeing a normal daylight schedule. We have a sunrise in the morning, daylight all day, and a sunset in the evening, with dark and stars at night. Even still, the sun (and the moon) never reach more than 30º above the horizon, giving us hours of golden light and pink clouds in the evening and mountains lit up across the bay in the mornings.

Above: Sunset on March 16th, 2026

Above: Sunrise on March 18th, 2026