January Melt Out and an Impressively Windy Start to Winter
2019-01-24 13:20:44.000 – Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist
More impressive than this brief thaw have been our winds so far this winter. While we haven’t surpassed the highest winds in my 6 years on the summit (141 mph), I can say this first half of the winter season has been the windiest in terms of average wind speed and number of 100+ mph days. With still one more week to go in the month of January, we’ve seen 10 days with 100+ mph winds, and 18 days with winds of hurricane force (74+ mph). Average winds for the month have been also been above average at 48 mph, and with 4 days of 120+ mph peak gusts it’s felt like an epic start to 2019 so far!
Although our average winds are highest in January at 46 mph, the summit has seen many of our strongest wind events during the second half of the winter season, or even in spring like our former world record wind of 231 mph on April 12th, 1934. March, 1942 saw a peak gust of 180 mph, the third highest of our records. Despite the current melt out, we’ve still got a lot of winter left up here on the Rockpile, I’m hoping we haven’t peaked with our winds for the season just yet!
Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist
Adjusting to Life on the Summit
Adjusting to Life on the Summit By Charlie Peachey Working on the summit of Mount Washington is not your average job. There aren't too many other places where the employees work and live together for
A Surprise Aurora
A Surprise Aurora By Francis Tarasiewicz After 17 months of working at New England’s highest peak, it finally happened. On the night of November 12th, 2023, I was lucky enough to view the famous and
A Glimpse at METAR Reports
A Glimpse at METAR Reports By Alexis George, Weather Observer & Meteorologist METAR observations are submitted every hour of every day at Mount Washington Observatory. METAR is a format for reporting weather information that gets