Hey guys,
Well we are now within about 24 hours from the expected time of deployment of tomorrow morning off of Iceland , so I am going to give an overview of what the conditions currently are off of the western coast so we know what Challenger 1 is going to be up against.
According to weather underground, current conditions are 52°F and partly cloudy with winds up around 9 mph. Starting later on tonight there is a chance of rain through tomorrow. This forecast matches nicely with the figure above on the left showing a storm system moving in our direction currently off the coast of Norway that will most likely follow the currents shown in the figure on the right.
To get a better idea of what the currents are doing here is a zoomed in picture of the western coast of Iceland with the hycom current model overlay:
Depending on the actual deployment site, after we get around the southern peninsula (which may require at first a way point to the North West) we will need to start heading south to try and avoid being swept too far away from our ideal path.
Looking at a bathymetry map of the shelf break off of Iceland, it looks like we are going to have to fly quite shallow for the first part of the missio, but after we get about 100km south, we will be entering some deeper waters that will allow us to fly much better.
This chart is a cross section showing the depths going north(left) to south(right) along the line drawn on this map:
That is all for now, but we will have an update on what’s going on by tomorrow.
-Nilsen