The barrage of winter weather in the Western U.S. closed down some nuclear weapons sites again on Tuesday, with the Pantex plant bracing for a third straight snow day for non-essential workers.
Pantex canned the Wednesday day shift on account of snowy and icy conditions after doing the same on Monday and Tuesday, according to notices posted online. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) weapons assembly hub near Amarillo, Texas, was at deadline evaluating whether to keep non-essential personnel scheduled for Wednesday’s second and third shifts home again, too.
The eastward-moving weather also prompted the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to send employees home early on Monday, and to close the lab entirely on Tuesday due to “heavy snow,” according to a notice posted online.
The Laboratory is closed today, Oct. 27, due to heavy snow in Los Alamos. Check for updates on the LANL websites and the LANL Hotline at 667-6622. pic.twitter.com/JJIBmZuKfJ
— Los Alamos Lab (@LosAlamosNatLab) October 27, 2020
Further South in New Mexico, the Sandia National Laboratories also closed up shop on Tuesday and at deadline had delayed the start of the day Wednesday to 10 a.m. local time.
Elsewhere in the country, what earlier in the week was a Gulf Coast tropical storm is now a Gulf Coast Hurricane. The National Weather Service now predicts that Hurricane Zeta will make U.S. landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday and sweep northeast late in the week.
The remains of Zeta may dump heavy rains near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and on Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to local weather reports. The storm may nick the northwestern tip of South Carolina, but it appeared set to miss the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., by a wide berth, according to National Weather Service predictions on Wednesday morning.
Finally, weather complications unrelated to the hurricane or the winter storm in the west prevented the launch of a Minuteman III test from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Wednesday morning, according to the Air Force.
“The Air Force delayed an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, today due to adverse weather conditions at the target area downrange,” the service wrote in a press release. “The launch has been rescheduled for Thursday, Oct. 29, between 12:27 a.m. and 6:27 a.m. Pacific Time from Vandenberg.”
Minuteman III test launches usually send missiles from the California coast down to the vicinity of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
