Communication troubles

2007-12-24 12:13:52.000 – Brian Clark (via fax machine),  Summit Observer

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We are experiencing communications troubles, please read below:

Sunday was a long day for the crew up here on the summit.

Our Internet connection to the outside world is via a microwave radio link from an antenna on the top of our tower to an antenna on the roof of the Weather Discovery Center in North Conway, and then out to the World Wide Web via a standard cable Internet connection. Yesterday morning, the quality of the radio connection to the valley began to degrade. Steve decided to bring in the antenna, dry off the connections and see if that helped. When we put it back up, we had no connection at all anymore.

After countless trips up and down the tower all day and leaning over the tower railing in winds gusting over 100 mph in our face, all troubleshooting options had been exhausted. The fact that it was not only a Sunday, but also the day before Christmas Eve did not help us in getting a hold of valley staff that could check the antenna on the roof of the Weather Discovery Center. We were finally able to reach Mike at home this morning, who found no problems at the valley end of the link.

This lack of connection to the valley has prevented us from updating the comments, uploading this week’s ObsCast (which we think is a good one), updating the webcam images, and updating the forecast and weather data on the website. This problem will continue for the near future, until conditions improve.

So now that I’ve updated you on that technical stuff, I wan to update you on the weather. I already mentioned winds were gusting over 100 mph by late in the day. This continued through the night with a a peak gust for the day yesterday at 103 miles per hour. Most of the precipitation from the storm yesterday fell as sleet, freezing rain, and plain rain. Temperatures topped out at 35 degrees yesterday. This was the first time we recorded a temperature above 26 degrees since November 27th. After the front went through last night, temperatures plummeted from 32 degrees to 4 degrees in 6 hours.

High pressure will begin to build in tomorrow, but until then wind will continue to gust over 100 mph. This coupled with single digit temperatures will keep us from troubleshooting our Internet connection problems until things do clear out later tomorrow. Rest assured, we will do our best to get updates coming to the website as soon as possible.

Brian Clark (via fax machine),  Summit Observer