Atlantic 2010-09-20 18:27:41.000 - Erica Sandschulte,  Summit Intern A beautiful sunset from MWO Earlier this week, I was able to give my first tour to a group of our members from the Portland area. As we stood on the tower deck, enjoying the magnificent view, I pointed towards the general direction Portland would be. Moments before that the clouds had just cleared and I could see something glistening to the east, it was the Atlantic Ocean! At first I thought it was a job well done by a window washer on a sky scraper but as my eyes trailed the

Red Sky at Morning, Hikers Take Warning... 2010-09-19 18:28:38.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist "Red" sky at night, an observers delight. In my optics class, we looked at the "truth" in a few of old adages that circulate in American culture. One of them we examined was an old naval adage that went:"Red sky at morning, sailors take warning; Red sky at night, sailors delight."But, this adage is far from an "American" adage as it can be traced back to Europe several thousands of years earlier. In 1593, William Shakespeare used a variation of the adage in his poem Venus

A Nice Hike 2010-09-18 16:06:21.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer Cairn and Cloud With high pressure in place and a capping inversion, things have been quite remarkable on the summit the past couple days. Last night was no exception as an undercast hung out around 5600 feet. With light winds and a waxing moon on the rise, Brian and I set off on a short hike around the summit. We had hardly left the building when we stopped to take a picture of a cool optical phenomenon. Clouds hovered over the Carter-Moriah Range and an array of colors, like a

Live on the Weather Channel 2010-09-17 12:00:56.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL Yesterday ended up being a very busy day dealing with calls from the media. Although, as I mentioned yesterday, Wednesday's meager snowfall was not record breaking by any means, it is still an exciting story to a lot of people.One of the media calls came from the Weather Channel. Now, in the past year or so we discovered that, as an organization, we have the ability to talk live with TV stations using a computer program called Skype. This software allows us to not only send

First snowfall 2010-09-16 17:18:25.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist An icy early morning view The big news from yesterday: it snowed! In fact, it was the first time this season that we have actually been able to measure snowfall in our precipitation can. A total of 0.4 inches fell through the day yesterday, which obviously isn't much. There was also a fairly significant amount of glaze ice (for mid-September) that formed into this morning.Is this record breaking? Not even close. We've recorded measurable snowfall in late August. It is however the earliest we have seen greater than 0.1 inches

Volunteer Comment 2010-09-15 17:06:11.000 - Sharon Camp & Sandy Fisher,  Summit Volunteers We had a delayed arrival on Wednesday evening due to the Auto Road being closed for the day for the filming of the record breaking Rally Car drive up the 7.6 mile Auto Road in 6 minutes, 20.47 seconds. Ken drove us up for our second year of volunteering as cooks for the Obs crew. We arrived in clouds/fog with the road invisible. We had to have faith in Ken with his experience of 4000 plus drives up the mountain as he told us, "OK, there is a

NULL 2010-09-14 16:33:31.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL Today is September 14th. Tomorrow will be September the 15th and it is supposed to be partly sunny, 65 degrees with a light breeze in the valley. On top, it's going to be close to freezing, foggy, with winds gusting towards hurricane force. The middle of September is notorious for hypothermia cases because the absurdly pleasant valley weather is not indicative of the weather on the higher summits.155 years ago, a family of three hikers made a few fatal mistakes, resulting in the untimely death of Lizzie Bourne, a young

NULL 2010-09-13 08:23:41.000 - Jennifer Finn,  Summit Intern Flag hoisting on the tower As Mike mentioned yesterday, we had a gorgeous day on Saturday. Stacey and I went out early to get the observation, and I was more than thrilled to see the Atlantic Ocean! I have always been drawn to the sea, and being able to see it from a place I never thought I could was pretty amazing. It could not have been a more perfect evening for the Sunset Soiree. Compared to the day before, winds were much calmer and nearly non-existent as visitors began to gather

Sunset Soiree 2010-09-12 02:59:50.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist Soiree-ing on the Summit! As our shift drove up the Auto Road on Tuesday evening for our special early shift change, the summit was in the clear and the sun was setting off to the west. As twilight faded and the stars came into focus in the moonless sky, the faint flicker of lightning from distant thunderstorms created an impressive show for the early part of the night. As the showers and storms approached the summit, fog engulfed our mountaintop location. Little did we know that the fog would not let

NULL 2010-09-10 11:55:22.000 - Cara Rudio,  Marketing and Communications Coordinator NULL Remember on Wednesday when Steve mentioned that the Auto Road was closed? We weren't at liberty to divulge at the time, but can now happily share the news: In preparation for the return of their popular 'Climb to the Clouds' auto race next year, the Mt. Washington Auto Road was hosting a visit from famous rally car driver Travis Pastrana. After just two test drives up the 7.6-mile road, which has an average grade of 11.6 percent, Pastrana set a jaw-dropping new course record of 6 minutes, 20.47 seconds!If