Déjà vu: Blizzard on Maunakea

Winter extremes are not unusual for the summit area of Maunakea — the highest point in the pacific basin, and host to many of the world’s premier astronomical observatories. However, it seems that lately a case of déjà vu has hit, as the summit has been largely inaccessible for most of the first part of March.  Back in 2008 the summit experienced a similar extended period of winter weather causing the Maunakea observatories to miss out on observations for most of January in that year.

Due to the unusually severe weather, access to the summit has been impossible for anyone (including observatory staff) over the last several days and the road is not expected to reopen anytime soon. Snow continued to accumulate even as snow removal vehicles attempted to clear the way, eventually forcing them to retreat with little visibility and extremely hazardous conditions preventing any further road clearing yesterday.

Gemini’s summit crew member, John Randrup, captured these images (with very high snow drifts!) on one of the few occasions that the access road was open long enough to allow observatory vehicles to pass earlier this week.

Currently the Maunakea Support Services are advising that no one should attempt to travel the summit access road for the foreseeable future: due to heavy accumulation of ice and snow on the summit road and high winds exceeding 60 mph, gusting up to 88 mph today.

Click on the images below for larger versions. Also, have a look at NASA’s Earth Observatory image of a snow blanketed Maunakea.