Hello from the Summit of Mount Washington!

2020-01-10 13:35:22.000 – Eve Cinquino, Summit Intern

Hello from the summit of Mount Washington!

My name is Eve Cinquino, and I am one of the winter interns here at the Observatory. I’m originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and I’m so happy to be joining the team this winter and sharing my experiences with all of you!

On January 8^th, I took my first Snow Cat trip up to the summit. We all piled in to the Observatory’s Snow Cat and enjoyed a relatively uneventful (although bumpy) ride up to the summit. We stopped part way up to get out and check out the views, although visibility was quickly dropping. There was a storm blowing in and once we were above treeline the visibility was only about 1/8 mile.

 

When we arrived at the summit, we unloaded gear and had a very brief shift change meeting before the opposing shift headed down mountain in order to make it down before the winds got any stronger. My first afternoon was spent learning the ropes—I got to hammer rime ice off the weather instruments, learned how to record the evening radio show, explored the Sherman Adams building, and met Marty, the observatory cat.

The next morning, cloud cover lifted and I got my first view from the summit! While we still couldn’t see down into the valley, the views were absolutely stunning—it feels like we’re on an island in a sea of clouds.

 

On Thursday morning we recorded gusts up to 114mph—definitely the most extreme wind that I’ve ever witnessed. The observers tell me that wind around 70mph can be “fun wind” up here—you can go outside and get blown around, but once it gets much faster than that it’s “scary wind”—it’ll knock you down and blow you to the other side of the deck, where it takes all your energy to get back to the building entrance. By afternoon it had settled down enough for me to go outside and check out my new surroundings in some “mild” 50 mph winds!

 

I’ll be interning though the end of May, so you’ll be hearing a lot more from me as I adjust to life at the summit and begin work on my research project. A big shout-out to our volunteers this week, Kelly and Patty, for going above and beyond for our dinners (fresh bread!) and being great company!

Eve Cinquino, Summit Intern