Grounded due to fog

Webcam at Zeppelin Mointain

Unfortunally, we are grounded scince two days. This time the problem is the local weather. A warm and moist air mass was transportet into Svalbard producing low clouds up to the position of Polarstern. Low clouds and especially fog as predicted in the aviation weather forecast are not favorable for starting and landing an airplane under visual flight conditions. That's why had to cancel flights yesterday and to postpone this morning.

The strange situation is, that locally, no clouds or fog are present in Isfjorden while in Ny Alesund, the Kongsfjorden is completely overcasted as shown by the webcam at Zeppelin Mointain. This is certainly due to local effects of the mountains and fjords. Obviously these local conditions can not be precisely forecasted by the weather models... One reason why we are here and aim to characterize such clouds in detail. Only that these clouds now stop us from measuring. Let's hope for other winds and no clouds at the airport.