Normal…

2006-12-19 07:56:47.000 – Jim Salge,  Observer

Holiday dreams…

There is something that I love about watching a large shield of green and yellow radar echoes slowly work towards your location in winter. In my youth, it meant days off from school, sledding and snowball fights. Today it means going about my work with excitement and rush that your forecast takes on a heightened importance, and of course it means powder days and photographic winter scenes. I still get excited about winter storms. There hasn’t been much to be excited about recently though up here is gray, and in some cases green New England.

In the sliding scale of recent experiences, I feel excited this morning. Not quite as much as if a large nor’easter were barreling up the coast, but excited none the less. Conditions have trended back to near normal on the peak, complete with near zero temps, sub zero wind chills and upslope snow showers. A fresh inch has fallen up here, and while that happens most days up here in winter, given recent trends, I’m happy just to see some beautiful six sided stars landing on our snow board this morning.

Will the pattern hold, and most importantly, may all the holidays be white this year? Well, there’s a chance. A storm system is set to move into the region Saturday and Sunday, and while it looks like rain at this point, it won’t take too much of a miracle to move this thing a hundred miles to the east and yield some snow. I can hope so…I yearn for scenes like the one above…

I’ll be heading down the mountain tomorrow morning, and want to take the opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. I also want to thank all the members and supporters of the Mount Washington Observatory for their continued gifts of support this past year!

Jim Salge,  Observer