Say It Isn't Tuesday! 2012-10-30 23:35:46.000 - Joe Kayan,  Summit Volunteer Gulfside Trail Today (Tuesday) has inevitably arrived (and nearly past). It's the last day before the summit staff shift change. This is the fifth time in the past four years that I have experienced this bittersweet day as a summit volunteer. I, along with my observer housemates for the week, leave for lower elevations tomorrow; off the summit of this sublime, ferocious, otherworldly place that the top of Mount Washington is to me. That's the bitter.Going home to my lovely wife, family and friends, to my job; back to

An Anomalus Day on the Summit 2012-10-29 16:27:59.000 - Stephen Lanciani,  Summit Intern Snow stakes along the Auto Road With all the talk of winter coming, conditions worsening, and more recently of Hurricane Sandy, I want to take a break for a minute to talk about something different...a near-perfect day that we had on the summit this shift! On Friday, October 26th we set a new record daily high temperature of 55 degrees, breaking the previous record of 52 degrees set in 1971. Yes, this was nice, but the fact that the sun was shining bright and winds were almost

Should I Go Hiking? 2012-10-28 19:21:00.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Weather Observer/Meteorologist Clouds from Sandy provided a colorful sunrise. Should I go hiking the Monday or Tuesday? That is a question we have been asked and you might be asking yourself. So here is my long and short response. The long response is this: A storm is coming up the eastern seaboard. Now, you may have heard it called Hurricane Sandy, a post-tropical low, a Nor'easter, Frankenstorm, the Perfect Storm -Part Deux, or one of many other names. Regardless of what you want to call it, the bottom line is a

We Need to Talk About Sandy 2012-10-27 17:57:13.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Weather Observer/Meteorologist Sandy et al from space earlier today. Reading through various status updates, comments, tweets, etc. about the upcoming storm, it seems that people are becoming more and more polarized in their opinions about what to do and what will be happening. Some are either over preparing like it is the end of times or they are taking the opposite approach and ignoring it all together because they feel it is being overhyped. But, I feel you shouldn't be doing either of these, you just need to find

Another busy and exciting day on the rock pile 2012-10-26 19:49:35.000 - Roger Pushor,  Weather Observer/IT Specialist A view of the insides of the Hays Chart This morning started out with my normal routine of Observations and Daily Check where we take a second look at yesterday's Observations to make sure everything that was input to the station records makes logical sense and there were no keying errors. As we've beefed up our Input Validation over the past few months the number of minor errors that slip by and need to be corrected has dropped to nearly zero.The next task

Don't Take Technology for Granted 2012-10-25 17:35:24.000 - Stephen Lanciani,  Summit Intern Finally, we have power again! State Park has been replacing a major electrical sub-system, which required them to place necessities (weather instruments and the like) on temporary power and cut the juice to the rest of the Sherman Adams Building. For almost 48 hours we have been living with no heat, no light, and only non-perishable food. Thankfully, winds have been nearly calm, conditions have remained dry, and temperatures have risen above normal, allowing to the building to retain at least some heat. It should be noted however

Back From Vacation 2012-10-24 18:59:16.000 - Rebecca Scholand,  Weather Observer/Education Specialist NULL Well I am back on the summit after my vacation and ready for winter. The past few weeks I have been calling Long Island home where I have been relaxing. Although my definition of relaxing took me through 11 states, a river, numerous beaches, a old live fire military range, and involved every form of transportation I am back and feeling refreshed. I visited with friends and made new ones along the way all while never feeling too far from the Observatory. On one particular instance I was

My Stay at MWO: A Volunteer's Perspective 2012-10-23 17:31:49.000 - Brad Chapin,  Summit Volunteer NULL Finishing my 3rd tour of duty as a volunteer on the summit of Mt. Washington with the Observatory, I'm frequently asked, why? Why tolerate the nasty weather, the many fix-it jobs, and the endless meals? Well, when the weather is nice the views are breath taking, the stars at night are flashlight bright....and I love to cook. Besides, what could be more fun than tackling 100mph winds, -20 degrees, all in a white out? It's also a matter of giving back. My brother and I

Electrical Work 2012-10-22 15:29:24.000 - Steve Welsh,  Weather Observer/IT Specialist NULL State Park will be performing essential maintenance work, here at the summit of Mount Washington, starting early tomorrow morning. The work will entail major changes to their electrical sub-system. They have transferred all essential systems over to 'temporary power' including our instrument network, computer servers and radio equipment. All being well there should be no outages affecting the data feed to our website, however, as with any major transition we could experience some downtime, if this occurs please be patient and we'll be back on line as soon as

So Long Summer 2012-10-21 16:43:01.000 - Steve Welsh,  Weather Observer/IT Specialist NULL Well it's that time of year again. After a really busy summer season the Sherman Adams building is now closed to the public. The Auto Road is also closed to the summit, however, they'll be running Snow Coach tours to treeline starting in December. Weather permitting the Cog Railway will be running trains to the summit until conditions prevent them from doing so.Anyone planning on hiking Mount Washington should now be prepared for winter conditions and realize that there are no facilities available to them once they reach