SHEBA ship was under a southwesterly flow associated with a large low to the north near the pole. The radar showed cloud cover thickening in the afternoon. The satellite image shows fairly uniform cirrus elongated southwest-northeast over the ship. The sounding indicates thick cloud cover up to 9 km with possible clear layers at 2.5 and 5.5 km.
Barrow had dense cloud cover with a few local breaks. Cirrus covered most of the area around Barrow.
The trajectories to SHEBA ship came mostly from the west. The surface air came from eastern Siberia to the southwest. Higher levels came from Asian locations farther to the west.
The trajectories to Barrow came from a variety of directions. The surface to 1.5 km air came from the Beaufort Sea-Alaskan coast to the east. The 3.0 km air came from the northern Pacific Ocean across central Alaska. Higher level air, 6 and 9 km, came from the west side of the Chukchi Sea looping south across eastern Siberia and the Bering Straight.
