Fiber and lightning

2011-08-22 19:40:36.000 – Ryan Knapp,  Weather Observer/Meteorologist

The fiber optic cable we pulled today.

There’s usually a joke that asks, ‘How many people does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ Well today felt like a variation of that question only it went ‘How many observatory staff does it take to pull an old, unused fiber optic line through the entire length of the building?’ The answer is apparently 4-5 of us (three observers, and two interns) over a span of just over two hours. In addition, it was dirty (I’m still pulling lil’ chunks of ceiling tile out of my hair and inside of my clothes), hot (heat rises and gets trapped above those ceiling tiles like no other), and itchy (I now have small hives from the fiber glass wrapping all our hot water pipes). But with all of us pushing, pulling, bobbing, and weaving the wires through the various holes and around all the pipes and wire already in place, we made ‘short’ work of the task at hand.

In other news, the other big story of this week (and most of the summer) has been all the lightning storms. If you follow Facebook page, you may have seen the lightning that was photographed over the Wildcat Range on Friday. While that storm was impressive, we had another stronger and even more active line of thunderstorms roll through yesterday afternoon and last night. We had a few direct hits to the summit which allowed the lights to dim with each hit and several summit alarms kept getting tripped off. While it was a neat yet eerie experience, like most thunderstorms that occur up here, we were in the fog so it was impossible for us to get any pictures of the storm. But if we get any more pictures of the lightning (or anything else for that matter) we’ll post them on our Observer Comments or our Facebook page just as soon as we can to share our experiences with you.

Ryan Knapp,  Weather Observer/Meteorologist