Volunteer Comment 2010-12-08 17:39:49.000 - Betsy Fowler,  Summit Volunteer Us on the summit I am the current volunteer on the summit with my friend, Sue. This is our first time spending a week in winter, and we have been thoroughly enjoying our time here watching the changes in the weather from the comfort of the Observatory building and from outside getting blown about with strong winds. We hope to return next winter if they'll have us again.Yesterday, we got to experience going up in the parapet with Stacey while she chipped the ice off the pito tube on the anemometer.

NULL 2010-12-07 18:37:32.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL The day after Thanksgiving, as far back as I can remember, was always the beginning of the Christmas season. That's when it is ok to play Christmas carols, to decorate your house, and start baking sinfully delicious cookies. It's also time to start shopping! I give those willing to endure the lines on Black Friday kudos; I have absolutely no patience for lines. My shopping is fairly limited to a few precious weeks, unless something inspired me months before (that has happened on a few occasions). The invention of online

NULL 2010-12-06 13:38:12.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist fun with light Yesterday was great. As Kristin mentioned, we had sun, an undercast, and a persistent fog-bow. One of my favorite views was from the top of the parapet. You can see the fog like a gossamer sheet blanketing the summit buildings. The fog-bow was pretty sweet as well. Going up to the parapet for some pictures inspired my afternoon task. The strong sun, light winds, and warm temperatures were the perfect combination for a little bit of parapet de-icing. After the glaze and rime, it was pretty messy up

NULL 2010-12-05 15:14:14.000 - Kristin Raisanen,  Summit Intern A sunny summit! For our last 3 shift weeks, Sunday has really lived up to its name. During our mostly cloudy weeks, it always seems that Sunday is the day when the clouds break and we see the sun making the day aptly named Sun-day. Today was no different. This morning I was shocked to hear we were mostly in the clear and that the sunrise would be visible. When I looked at the forecast last night the possibility of seeing a sunrise this week seemed slim, but there it was, sunrise.

NULL 2010-12-04 13:53:28.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL Whistling while you work definitely makes working (shoveling) a lot more fun. The famous seven dwarves really knew how to motivate people. Christmas music has been blaring out of our speakers since Wednesday, which means Christmas songs were on our mind for our morning shoveling routine! Kristin, Jen, and I began with an off-key, obnoxiously loud rendition of Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas. We continued in the A-frame by starting a lot of tunes; we didn't finish many. That's when we decided to come up with an Observatory-themed

NULL 2010-12-03 14:08:19.000 - Jennifer Finn,  Summit Intern NULL As promised, we're keeping you updated on our progress on dealing with all the ice on the summit. Steve and our volunteers did a great job yesterday getting most of the ice off of the A-frame. They spent a good amount of time using a mallet to whack huge chunks of it off and move them out of the way so we can walk through. Some ice chipping has also been done to make a clearer path through the A-frame. The door to the observation deck is a whole lot lighter

NULL 2010-12-02 14:31:39.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist Let the fun begin! Happy December Everyone! We arrived at the summit yesterday to freezing rain and the most significant glazing event our shift has ever seen! During a normal icing event, we try to remove the large chunks of ice before they fall off the building and onto someone's head. This time, temperature was forecast to stay cold and the ice built up far too quickly to even pretend to keep up with it! We decided to wait until winds calmed, and temperatures cooled. I avoided going outside yesterday. Thank

NULL 2010-12-01 16:15:40.000 - Erica Sandschulte,  Summit Intern Flying a kite on the observation deck We are still experiencing significant glaze icing, which may knock out our Internet access. If website updates do not occur for a time, this is the reason and we'll get it back and running as soon as possible. Trust us - we want Internet access as much as you do! Today, Wednesday is our shift change day. Our crew will be heading down the Mountain and the alternating crew will arrive for another exciting week of weather. I must say, this past week was awesome.

NULL 2010-11-30 14:28:48.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer 12/01/2010 - 0700 EST Update: We are experiencing significant glaze icing, which may knock out our Internet access. If website updates do not occur for a time, this is the reason and we'll get it back and running as soon as possible. Trust us - we want Internet access as much as you do! So here we are at the other end of another shift. We have recently gone back into the fog after a nice respite for a day or two. Erica and I took advantage of the clear skies, low

Learning about glories 2010-11-29 16:22:27.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist Double glory!! Well, not exactly... I am the sort of person that like to learn new things. I'm happy to say that most days, I manage to learn something new, even if it is random and rather pointless. Today, I learned something about an optical phenomena that we see from time to time on the summit: a glory.A glory is created when sunlight backscatters off of a cloud layer (clouds with uniform droplet size work best) to its source, creating a ring of color on the cloud layer that