From Southern Gulf Beaches to New England Summits

By Mitchell Tsokatos

Hi everyone, my name is Mitchell Tsokatos and I am one of the fall interns for the Mount Washington Observatory. Born and raised in Alabama, crazy weather has always been a large part of my life. I’ve experienced dozens of intense squall lines and days where supercells splatter the state that you must anxiously watch to be prepared if one headed towards you. Funnily, I was incredibly scared of weather at a young age. I remember nervously asking my dad while we went on long road trips for racing events about distant lightning and constantly pestering him that he was sure we were fine where we were. Entering my teenage years though, I became fascinated by tornado sirens and entered a hobby and community of recording and documenting siren usage across the country. With this adjacency this hobby had to weather, my curiosity shifted more towards weather itself once I began to leave the tornado siren hobby.

My first ever summit, taken the day I arrived! You can see how perfect the weather was this day.

This began my long journey of weather education. Initially, I began to self-educate myself on tropical weather through the use of YouTube videos and other free resources that a broke teenager could access. The time had come for me to graduate high school, and I began my college education where I could become a full blown meteorologist. I received my undergraduate education from the University of South Alabama and then continued onto graduate school where I received my Master’s in Atmospheric Sciences from Texas A&M University. After completing those degrees I’ve searched for opportunities in the field of weather and the Mount Washington Observatory immediately stood out with its extreme weather and unique location.

Since starting my internship, I have been to a portion of the country I have never been to, experienced elevations I never have before, and have begun to adjust to a new life in the northeast! The first day was a beautiful clear day with light winds, a stark contrast to usual conditions on the summit. This showed me the beauty of the area I was in and really settled in how unique of an opportunity I had. Quickly, the summit returned to its chaotic nature as clouds enveloped the surrounding views and winds picked up. So far I have only experienced gusts to 40-50 mph, but I look forward to the approaching winter and the more extreme gusts I may get to endure!

While the sights of the summit have taken my attention so far, I will be conducting research during my time here. I will be working on a project that analyzes winter weather outlooks and the associated weather variables for producing a digestible outlook. This project is different from the content I worked with during graduate school and I am excited to learn more about the several aspects of meteorology that this project will go through.

One of the most stunning sunsets I’ve ever seen, provided by the incredible weather experienced during my first week as an intern.

My internship has just been getting started as I get accustomed to life on the summit, giving the public tours of the weather station, learning to produce official forecasts, and so much more. I am thankful for the observers, Alex and Charlie, that are guiding me and my fellow intern Cassie through this wonderful experience. I can’t wait to share the rest of my Mount Washington adventure with you all.