One Antarctic ice shelf gets half its annual snowfall in just 10 days

Extreme storms may skew what ice cores can tell us about past and future climates

Antarctic Peninsula

SNOWY SCENE  Brief, intense storms originating in the Southern Ocean can dump heavy snow on some parts of Antarctica, such as the Antarctic Peninsula (shown).

Tarpan/Shutterstock

Just a few powerful storms in Antarctica can have an outsized effect on how much snow parts of the southernmost continent get.