Ethan’s First Full Week on the Summit!

2019-06-11 18:40:53.000 – Ethan Rogers, Summit Intern

Hello everyone, my name is Ethan Rogers, and I am one of the summer interns for 2019! I am on the same shift as Ben Charles and Austin Patrick, two of the other interns, and it has been a great first full week on the summit! I am currently a rising Junior at Penn State University, and I am studying meteorology. I am in the ‘general’ option, which is almost like a jack-of-all-trades meteorologist, one who loves all types of weather and everything that has to do with weather. I am also minoring in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and I absolutely love all things maps, travel, and exploring new places! I am originally from the DC metro area in Maryland, but have since moved to Connecticut. Some other hobbies of mine include hiking, listening to music, watching and playing baseball and storm chasing!

Currently, my main focus in meteorology is studying extreme weather, and learning how to make forecasts for such events. However, I do love all aspects of meteorology, including researching and learning new things, making maps for severe weather events, and storm chasing! Previously, the highest wind I have ever experienced (or at least remember) was a 60 mile per hour gust in Amarillo, Texas earlier this year in May during a heat burst. Since I have been on the mountain though, I have experienced winds that gusted up to 90 miles per hour at the time that I am writing this, however in a couple of hours winds could even top 100 miles per hour! That is incredible to me! I have also experienced my first May snow on the summit, and experiencing the insane weather up here will always be an experience that I will cherish. I am also working on an interesting and exciting research project during my time on the summit!

My research project that I will be working on for the summer is called the “Winter Meltout Project”, or jokingly called the “Swiss Cheese Project”. The goal is to analyze the frequency, magnitude, and duration of winter (Dec-Feb) thaws from 1935 to 2019. I will be analyzing how often the temperatures (and eventually, dewpoints) rise above freezing over a winter season every year, and then I will analyze how many meltout events there are, as well as their magnitude. We jokingly call this the swiss cheese project because meltouts are almost like holes in the “cheese” that is winter, so we are trying to see if there are more holes per winter! It’s a great way to visualize the project and is pretty funny too!

I am absolutely loving my time up here on the summit of Mt. Washington, and for my first time in the White Mountains, this really isn’t too bad!

Ethan Rogers, Summit Intern