AntarcticDoctor

REUTERS:- Sources reporting from the South African research station in Antarctica, SANAE IV, describe their shock and terror today as expedition leader and doctor Ross Hofmeyr was viciously mauled by a large adult male polar bear.

Expedition members looked on helplessly as the massive rogue bear struck Dr Hofmeyr to the ground and sat on his chest, pinning him to the freezing snow. “It happened so fast,” said one stricken scientist in a telephonic interview, “initially he yelled and tried to wrestle the bear, but then he realised the futility of fighting the behemoth and chose to feign death instead.”

Prospective Antarctic research and support personnel are frequently warned by concerned relatives and friends of the danger of polar bears in the Antarctic, but most believe that they will be safe from attack. Documented Antarctic polar bear attacks are few, and often linked to some form of substance abuse. However, in an area renowned as one of the world’s last great wildernesses, it is clear that calumny awaits the uninformed. Fortunately for Dr Hofmeyr, the bear quickly lost interest, and he was able to escape with non-fatal injuries.

Please be warned that the photographs of the incident, below, are graphic and may upset sensitive readers. Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick note to say it’s official: We’ve broken the 150 km/h wind-speed barrier.  The current storm outside has just had a peak gust hit 83.6 knots, or 154 km/h, with the average speed around 70 knots. There is no sign of abatement; if anything, it’s been picking up through the day. Everything that can hum, rattle or vibrate in the base is adding to the ambiance; one can feel the gusts through the floor and see the windows deform. They say the base can withstand 300km/h… will we find out?

I’ve been trying to set up a direct weather feed on this page, with some lack of success. However, in the meantime, I have a link which updates regularly. Click the link to Current Weather Info on the right, or the banner below to go direct to the WeatherUnderground site.

A frequent question from readers of the blog, and anyone with whom I have contact back home, is “How’s the weather?” Certainly, being resident on a continent worthy of the reputation of “coldest, windiest place on Earth” makes on cognisant of the forces of nature. I haven’t yet been clever enough to write some code to provide a continuous weather feed from our monitoring equipment, but what I can do is to update the blog every now and then with some of our info. To start off, I’ve bugged Santjie, our meteorologist, to give me our ‘records’ for the year so far: