There’s a dry-erase board in the Crozier hut with a list, in blue, all-capital letters, of wind speeds and their official names. They go all the way from Breeze (4-31 mph) to Hurricane (72 mph or more). I had dreamed all night of pans clanging in a kitchen and found when I awoke that it was my tent making all the noise. I ran inside to the list and was disappointed to find we were having a rather dull-sounding Storm. That was until I read that Storms outrank much scarier-sounding weather, such as the intriguing Fresh Gale (39-46) and the ominous Whole Gale (55-63). It had been blowing 67 mph while I slept.
It’s hard to do research on penguins in such high winds. Though the work isn’t impossible, it can be dangerous to penguins if the work distracts them from keeping their chicks warm. So we spent most of the day inside the hut watching the readout from our weather station. Around 5 p.m. three of us headed out into the storm for a look at how penguins cope in the cold.
Read on about our adventure in the slideshow below. Can't see the slideshow? Get the Flash plug in»
