The wind is blowing. All the loose snow for three hundred miles is up in the air, and you can barely see a thing. The whole station is just a network of flag lines stretching into the opaque distance. When the visibility is like this, we follow these flag lines--bamboo pole after bamboo pole, flags snapping in the wind--even along familiar daily routes. At the end of each flag line, a building emerges from the haze.
Jason, Yuki and I released a weather balloon in this battering wind. With the radiosonde activated and the large balloon inflated inside the shop, we rolled up the big garage-style door. A sweep of blown snow poured in along the floor. Big eddies of snow were illuminated outside the shop, spinning and billowing. We finished preparations, and Jason stepped from the protection of the building, turning his back the wind, gripping the base of the big balloon, and throwing his body against the gusts. In the powerful winds, the soft balloon became wildly active and its shape distended, as if it held a frenzied creature desperate to escape through the elastic. The balloon was surging towards the building, and Jason took a few steps away, up the slope and into the full blast of the wind. He held the system for a moment, timing the release, and... snap. The balloon severed its heavy string, and was immediately lost in the roar of snow overhead. The radiosonde instrument was still in Jason's hand. We tried again, refilling a balloon, reattaching to the radiosonde and now releasing in the turbulent zone just in front of shop. The balloon thrashed above our heads for a moment, as if not yet conscious of its freedom, then was caught by the blast and disappeared downwind.
