Happy Early Thanksgiving

2007-11-22 02:50:06.000 – Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist

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Happy Thanksgiving to everyone (or if you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving…Happy Thursday). Since I am writing this on Thanksgiving morning, I cannot comment on how our dinner was, we will let you know tomorrow. What I can talk about is Wednesday cause a few things happened. When I awoke at 6 am, I looked out my window in Berlin, NH and saw snow. At first I was happy but this soon faded to fear when I realized that I would have to drive this soon. Although it ended up not being so bad, I got to experience a full transition as I climbed from my home to the summit at 6288 feet. What started as snow in Berlin and Gorham turned to ice pellets as I got to the auto road base. As we started to climb, ice pellets turned to freezing rain then rain. A temperature inversion in action. As of this writing, it is still raining so our snow is packing down. Interesting but that wasn’t the big news of the day.

So what was the big news of the day? At 2045 EST, something was heard on the summit for the first time in a long time, or should I say something was not heard. The generators were turned off and the summit went “on the grid” as the power line went live. No more white noise hum of the generators, no more exhaust, and eventually, the generators walls will be coming down (from what I have been told). Getting the precipitation can shortly after midnight was eerie. I could hear the wind, the snow beneath my feet, my heart, my breath, and my thoughts. It almost felt like something was wrong since that constant hum meant we were getting power, one of the ingredients for life. But I will eventually get use to it as will any of the hikers braving the summit this weekend or in the future. Now visitors will get to hear the welcoming bellows provided by the power of nature instead of by the power of man.

Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist