Extreme Weather in Chile

The Andes mountains and SOAR telescope (at left, in distance) covered in snow, as seen from the Gemini South rooftop camera with part of the Gemini dome and solar panels visible at right.

The central and northern regions of Chile suffered a short but intense period of exceptionally wet weather during the second week of May. More rain fell in a single day than is normally measured in a whole year in much of Chile. Our colleagues in Hilo might laugh at this amount of rain, but for the mountainous desert area, where Gemini South is situated, the effects were severe. The access road will need serious repair work and the observatory was out of operation for several nights, but resumed operations on the night of May 16-17^th.