RINGS Enderby Meteograms
Model output, not a forecast. These charts and notes are made automatically from the AMPS weather model, with no forecaster involved. They were first set up for a ground traverse in Dronning Maud Land and have not been adapted to Enderby Land or to flying; the wind-aloft numbers are shown as the model gives them, without interpretation. For flight decisions use the official forecast and the station forecaster.
Site map where the five sites are, their elevation and distance to the sea
coast and ice front · grounding line (Bedmap3) · white squares: Syowa and Molodezhnaya stations, used for the check against reports · + AMPS 8 km grid node; the ring marks the node each meteogram is read from. Map 829 × 489 km on the MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (2009); the sea is at the top and true north points up and to the right. E4 is 22 km west of the requested 66.5°S 57°E, whose grid node is at the coast.
| Site | Elevation | To the sea |
|---|
Field weather notes
the meteogram in words: hazards, wind, snow and cloud for each day
Day by day wind, snow, cloud, temperature, pressure for each day
AMPS against the station reports
Select all and copy, then paste into a spreadsheet. Saving files is not offered in this view; open the page signed in to claude.ai for download buttons.
Temperature
Red line: air temperature at 2 m with daily highs and lows. Blue dashes: wind chill, what exposed skin feels. Symbols every 6 h: clear, cloud or snow.
Cloud and snow
Grey: layers where the air is saturated over ice, so cloud is likely, by altitude (right scale). Orange ticks: model cloud base. Blue bars: snowfall as mm of water per 3 h (about 1 cm of fresh snow per mm).
Wind aloft
Bottom panel: AMPS wind at 850, 700 and 500 hPa every 6 h, arrow for direction (where it blows to) and number for speed in knots; the label gives the model's height of each level above sea level. Shown as the model gives it, without interpretation.
Wind
Speed at 10 m in m/s (left) and knots (right). Arrows point where the wind blows to; letters give where it comes from. Dashed lines mark strong (10 m/s) and gale (15 m/s). AMPS publishes no gusts.
Field weather notes
The meteogram in words, written automatically by fixed rules from the AMPS numbers, not by a forecaster. The thresholds come from the International Antarctic Weather Forecasting Handbook (Turner & Pendlebury 2004) and were set for a ground traverse in Dronning Maud Land; the rules specific to that region are switched off here. Not adapted to Enderby Land or to flying. Amber: drifting snow (mean wind 20 kt or more, 14 kt on fresh snow), snow of 0.5 mm or more, thick low cloud (poor contrast and horizon), or pressure falling fast. Red: blowing snow (35 kt or more) or whiteout risk (thick cloud with snow or drift). “Last run” compares the day with the previous AMPS run: a hazard seen in both runs is more trustworthy than one that just appeared.
AMPS against the station reports
Every update compares what this page showed at Syowa's grid point with the 3-hourly Syowa reports, and keeps the Molodezhnaya reports alongside. The bias tells you how to read the meteogram: for example, if AMPS has run 2 °C too cold at night, expect nights about 2 °C warmer than shown. It builds up through the season.
Pressure
Sea-level pressure. Red shading marks a fall of 4 hPa or more in 12 h, often the first sign of a storm or rising wind.
How this page works where the numbers come from
1. The weather model: AMPS
The Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (NCAR, for the US Antarctic Program) runs a weather model tuned for Antarctica on an 8 km grid, twice a day, and forecasts 5 days ahead. It is the model most Antarctic forecasters use.
new runs at 00 and 12 UTC, online about 10 h later2. An automatic job collects it
Every 30 minutes while a new run is due, a small program on GitHub checks for it and downloads only the numbers for the grid point nearest each of the five sites, and for Syowa station (a few hundred kB, not the gigabytes of the full model).
every 30 min, 09:00–12:00 and 21:00–00:30 UTC; new runs appear within about half an hour3. Charts and field weather notes
For each site it draws the meteogram (temperature, cloud, snow, wind, pressure) and writes the field weather notes (the meteogram in words) by fixed rules from the Antarctic Weather Forecasting Handbook: drifting snow, whiteout risk, falling pressure (set for a ground traverse in Dronning Maud Land; not adapted to Enderby Land or to flying). It also compares each day with the previous run: a hazard seen in both runs is more trustworthy. Every rule, its source and a worked example ↗
4. A check against real weather
It fetches the reports from Syowa and Molodezhnaya stations (via Ogimet) and compares Syowa with what AMPS forecast, so you can see how far to trust it, for example "AMPS runs about 3 °C too cold".
5. This page
The last 8 runs (4 days) are published here, for any phone or laptop. For a second opinion, each site links to the same point on meteoblue (global models, coarser than AMPS). The model is a guide, not a forecast: what you see on site comes first.