Science in the Mountains: Forecasting Wind Gusts on the Summit 2014-07-29 18:29:38.000 - Tom Padham,  Weather Observer NULL Our Science In the Mountains lecture series continues tomorrow at the Weather Discovery Center in North Conway, with this week's topic forecasting wind gusts on the summit. Ever wonder what creates a wind gust? Or why some days winds may be a steady breeze and others an erratic gale that tosses you around? I will be discussing a research project I worked on this past summer, where I studied wind data on the summit in order to gain a better understanding of

First Time As A Summit Volunteer 2014-07-28 18:31:28.000 - Rich Sullivan,  Summit Volunteer NULL To begin, I need to thank my wife and children for allowing me this time to fulfill my desire to spend the week on the summit of Mt Washington. It is the longest I have ever been away from them and I know it is a very huge sacrifice on their part.Lots of preparation was put into this week, along with 8 months of planning. I was able to become a member of Mount Washington Observatory and partake in this weeklong volunteer program. I made a

Snow In July? 2014-07-27 19:52:18.000 - Michael Kyle,  Weather Observer With the unofficial holiday of Christmas in July passing just two days back, it made me wonder if there has ever been a white Christmas in July here on the summit. It is not something totally unreasonable to think since we have recorded snow in every month of the year here at the Mount Washington Observatory. So I took a look at our archive weather observations and found some 42 days were snow has been recorded in the month of July. Unfortunately none of those 42 days were a July

Puuuuuurfect Day! MEEEOOOOWWW 2014-07-26 18:07:57.000 - Marty,  Summit Cat I'm Sleepy! Many meows from me, Marty! It's been a while since I last posted...you see I have been quite busy seeking attention from all the people coming up to see me this summer. I also have my full time job of watching over the observers and making sure they do their jobs properly. They don't like it when I sit on their data, but they don't understand that I'm really just checking their work!It's a full time job up here, especially in the summer. Plenty of lounging around, soaking in

Great End To The Day 2014-07-25 17:57:32.000 - Brett Rossio,  Summit Intern Summits Beginnning To Clear Out As Ethan said, I'm hoping for a visible thunderstorm soon too! The past couple of times the summit came close, but we were engulfed by fog and could only see flashes. That isn't discouraging me at all with the wide variety of weather I've already encountered up here!We finally escaped the fog this afternoon to allow us to get an early evening view of the horizon. The fog didn't discourage the public from coming up and seeing the summit, along with the erratic

Calm After the Storm 2014-07-24 15:03:57.000 - Ethan Wright,  Summit Intern Mt. Jefferson in the Early Morning Last night at the summit we experienced some thunderstorms associated with a cold front moving across the region. On the radar display we watched the storms approach the summit and waited intently for their arrival. By the time that the first lightning strike was recorded in the late afternoon, the summit was engulfed in clouds. The lightning show that we hoped to see was dampened by the foggy conditions at the summit. I have about two weeks left of my internship and still

Successful Experiment and Storms-a-Brewin 2014-07-22 19:18:36.000 - Caleb Meute,  Summit Intern Boom Goes the Watermelon SUCCESS! Well it took more than a few rubber bands to reach watermelon carnage, but it happened. Kaitlyn made the start of the experiment easy on us by purchasing 'only' 6 bags of rubber bands of various sizes. You might think these bags would contain maybe a few different sizes, but our friends at 'the rubber band store' (identity hidden) think closer to 15 different sizes would be just right. We sorted these out by each individual size because we thought it would be better

A Change Of Pace 2014-07-22 00:47:15.000 - Kaitlyn O`Brien,  Weather Observer/Education Specialist NULL After a busy and eventful weekend, I welcomed the slower pace today had to offer. This morning, we welcomed Guy Gosselin and his family to the summit for a tour of the new Extreme Mount Washington museum as well as the Weather Room. Afterwards, everyone had lunch together in our living quarters. Guy is a former observer and has dedicated much of his time to the Observatory over the years. We were happy to greet him and meet his family and everyone enjoyed their visit!Toward the afternoon,

Visitors from Above and Below 2014-07-19 23:04:27.000 - Kaitlyn O`Brien,  Weather Observer/Education Specialist Paramotor over the Great Gulf No two days on the summit are alike, and I always welcome the variety! This morning, I awoke and made my way up to the weather room to relieve Ryan. Shortly after discussing the schedule for the day, we noticed a strange sight out of our office window. A paramotor was sailing high above the northern Presidentials. I immediately grabbed my camera and headed outside to the deck where I saw nearly 7 more throughout the sky! It was a neat sight

Preparing For Round 2! 2014-07-18 19:16:35.000 - Arielle Ahrens,  Summit Intern NULL If you read my comment two shifts ago, you may recall the little experiment we did. This week we will be trying once again to explode a watermelon with rubber bands! We have more uniform-sized rubber bands and we are going to try and keep them in a narrower band around the watermelon. Don't worry though, we don't waste the watermelon, we eat it, and this time we will be saving the seeds to have a seed spitting contest. Look forward to Caleb's comment in the next few