BIRKELAND. THE NORWEGIAN AURORA POLARIS EXPEDITION, IQO2 1903. 



It must be in a great measure to the tremendously varying conditions of weather, that the immense 

 loss of life on West Spitsbergen is due. It is no exaggeration to say that all round about our station 

 was one great graveyard. 



It is for this reason that of late no one has ventured to winter in Spitsbergen; it is only during 

 the last three or four years that it has been done once more, for the polar bear hunting. 



It was fine during the first few days of January. The sky was clear, and the temperature was 

 more or less steady at - 30 C. But then the temperature began to rise, and the weather became un- 

 settled, with short stormy periods, all the rest of the month. On the night of the i3th January, the 

 temperature was 34 C. with a hazy atmosphere. On the morning of the i4th it had risen, however, 

 to --"19, and on the evening of the i5th, o'6 was recorded. The wind was fresh but tolerably steady 

 from the SSW. The precipitation was in the form of a rapidly varying mixture of snow, rain and soft 



hail. In the night, however, the temperature 

 fell to 7 again, and snow was continuous. 

 It may be mentioned that on the Axel Islands 



f;. ( ^C^A\^1 &* ft can q u ft e we ^ pour with rain with a tempera- 



M||^V ,^J^| ture 5 or 6 below zero. The wind changed, 



H^v-^B however, in the course of the i6th, through 



the west to north, while the temperature slowly 

 mf\ sank, and at midday on the lyth, we had quite 



9*L U ^ * a soft east-north-east wind with a temperature 



of i5'4- Good weather had been expected 

 again; but the black, threatening atmosphere 

 that rolls in from the sea (the Gulf Stream) in 

 the west, when a storm is brewing, hung over 

 us, heavy and unchanged. 



The temperature began to rise again, and we had five or six hours' storm from the east on the 

 night of the I7th. In the morning 9'5C was recorded, and by midday the temperature was about o 

 again, together with a south-west wind with rain, snow and sleet. 



During the i8th, igth and 2oth, the temperature sank again slowly, while the wind kept in the 

 south. The sky was an inky black, and it snowed and rained now and again. In the evening of the 

 1 9th, it rained with a temperature of 4-8 C. By the evening of the 2oth, it had sunk to 14'5, 

 and the atmosphere was a little lighter than it had been for a long time, so that the hope of fine weather 

 this time was well-founded, as the wind also had gone over to NNE again. On the morning of the 

 2ist, however, the temperature was up to 9, and later in the morning the wind was due south with 

 a very variable temperature with an average of 0^4 . That night there began a regular Spitsbergen storm in 

 all its wildness and greatness. We were awakened by the roar and noise occasioned by wind, ice and 

 rain. In the morning the storm reached its height. There was an average temperature of 2 C. The 

 wind was from the south, but its velocity varied incessantly; at one moment there was none, or a slight 

 breeze, the next it was blowing the wildest hurricane. It was these fearful gusts of wind, which often 

 occur in the stormy periods, that were dangerous to any one going out, for it is impossible to keep 

 one's balance in such a wind. During a storm of this kind, every condition varies by fits and starts - 

 wind, temperature and precipitation. You hear boom after boom, now in the distance and now so close 

 that you are in the very middle of it, and hear a roar as of a torrent around you; and gravel, stones 

 and snow are whirled about. The gusts often last only a few seconds. You can hear them coming 

 and then dying away in the distance. This may sometimes be followed by a heavy deluge of rain, but 

 the rain may also come during a lull. The sky is no longer an even black, but dark clouds of every 

 possible form are being driven along. 



Fig. 22. Celebrating a National Festival. 



