Century Club

2008-12-28 19:44:44.000 – Steve Welsh,  IT Observer

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What is going on with the weather? Last Tuesday when we came up to the summit we had a couple of feet of snow and everything was white. Over the week we have seen several periods of rain and temperatures well over 32 degrees. In fact we set a new daily record high temperature of 42 degrees on Saturday and equaled the daily high temperature on Sunday, again 42 degrees. Needless to say the snow pack has suffered terribly and we are down to rocks with patches of icy snow. The main summit area is just solid ice at the moment and crampons are a must if venturing outside.

On the plus side we have had some decent winds with 127 mph on Christmas eve, 129 mph seen on Christmas day and 122 mph so far today. Since the warm weather completely cleared the deck of ice and for once the winds weren’t too gusty plus were coming from due west, making the deck relatively sheltered, an attempt was made at the Century club around 5:30pm today. After a couple of tries the entire crew made it round the observation deck while winds, recorded at the top of the tower, were sustained at well over 100mph. Time to celebrate!

Steve Welsh,  IT Observer