Abstract. Four summer seasons of nitrogen oxide (NO) concentrations were obtained at the South Pole during the Sulfur Chemistry in the Antarctic Troposphere (ISCAT) program (1998 and 2000) and the Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI) in (2003,. Together, analyses of their data here provide insight into the large-to-small scale meteorology that sets the stage for high NO and the significant variability that occurs day-to-day, within seasons and year-toyear. In addition, these observations reveal the interplay between physical and chemical processes at work in the stable 15 boundary layer of the high Antarctic plateau. We found a systematic evolution of the large-scale wind system over the ice sheet from winter to summer that controls the surface boundary layer and its effect on NO: Initially in early spring (Days 280-310) the transport of warm air and clouds over West Antarctica dominates the environment over the South Pole; In late spring (Days 310-340), of significance to NO, the winds at 300-hPa exhibit a bimodal behavior alternating between NW and SE; In early summer (Days 340-375), the flow aloft is dominated by winds from the Weddell Sea. During late spring, winds 20 aloft from the SE are strongly associated with clear skies, shallow stable boundary layers, and light surface winds from the east: it is under these conditions that the highest NO occurs. Examination of the winds at 300 hPa from 1961 to 2013 shows that this seasonal pattern has not changed significantly although the last twenty years have seen an increasing trend in easterly surface winds at the South Pole. What has also changed is the persistence of the ozone hole, often into early summer. With lower total ozone column density and higher sun elevation, the highest actinic flux responsible for the 25 photolysis of snow nitrate now occurs in late spring under the shallow boundary layer conditions optimum for high accumulation of NO. This may occur via the non-linear HO X -NO X chemistry proposed after the first ISCAT field programs and NO X recycling to the surface where quantum yields may be large under the low-snow-accumulation regime of the Antarctic plateau. During the 2003 field program a sodar made direct measurements of the stable boundary layer depth (BLD), a key factor in explaining the chemistry of the high NO concentrations. Because direct measurements were not 30 available in the other years, we developed an estimator for BLD using direct observations obtained in 2003 and step-wise linear regression with meteorological data from a 22-m tower (that was tested against independent data obtained in 1993). These data were then used with assumptions about the column abundance of NO to estimate surface fluxes of NO X . These results agreed in magnitude with results at Concordia Station and confirmed significant daily, intraseasonal and interannual variability in NO and its flux from the snow surface. Finally, we found that synoptic to mesoscale eddies governed the 35 boundary layer circulation and accumulation pathways fo...