Meteorological surface conditions at Patriot Hills, Antarctica

Since 1995 and for about one month each year, the Chilean Antarctic Institute and the Air Force have been establishing a field camp at Patriot Hills. This has given the opportunity to carry out some basic meteorological observations in almost unknown region. Intense surface wind events above 12 m/s from the south-southwest with a constancy of 0.86 revealed that the area is under the katabatic winds influnce as the model suggests. Precipitation events were associated with weak frontal depressions that reach far in the interior of the West Antarctic. Analyses of the meteorological observed variables are compared with NCEP analyses to investigate its performance in this high southern location.