brad's comment 2010-09-25 23:12:00.000 - Brad Bradstreet,  Summit Volunteer Let me start at the beginning, I climbed Mt Washington for the first timewhen I was 13 years old. The old hotel was at the summit with huge chainsacross the roof and bolted to the rocks to hold the building down in highwinds. Oh, that made a big impression on me and I have been coming back eversince. At this point, I have hiked to the summit over 50 times and each timeis like the first no matter what the weather happened to be.Over time I fell in love with all

weather shifts 2010-09-24 23:09:25.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist NULL Good weather shift vs. Bad weather shift!The battle continues...It's a timeless struggle between the two factions of individuals that call this mountain home on opposing weeks.On one side of the fence, there lies the good weather shift. Sunnier days, less fog, and calmer winds generally characterize a better part of this group's time on the rockpile. To them, the moniker 'home of the world's worst weather' seems more in line with a misnomer, as they ponder, 'when, oh when, will we experience the wild winter weather with which this mountain

NULL 2010-09-23 16:14:28.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist totally worth 430 am! Happy Fall Everyone! With crisp cool nights, and sunny Indian summer days, autumn has arrived in style. The hottest colors this fall: orange, yellow, and red! Fall is, by far, my favorite season. In addition to Mother Nature's fashion show, apples and pumpkins are in season, and mouthwatering smells of leaves and baking apple and pumpkin pies permeate the air. Halloween is fun too. Yesterday was the first full day of fall, and to celebrate we had shift change! It was a rather eventful morning. As a

NULL 2010-09-22 16:34:10.000 - Dick Pollock and Ellin Leonard,  Summit Volunteers NULL The day our volunteer shift started we proceeded up the Auto Rd in the Observatory van with the knowledge that at some point we would probably meet icy conditions and have to 'chain up' in order to make the last leg of the trip safely. At a little over six miles we began to see the first snow of the season and we slowed to evaluate road conditions. Our driver, Ken Rancourt, who has driven the road for many years in all conditions, sensed the need to stop

Cap Cloud 2010-09-21 17:51:25.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer Cap Cloud We are about as close to being in the fog as we can be here on the summit without actually going into it. The phenomenon we are currently experiencing is referred to as a cap cloud. It is a form of wave cloud, related to lenticulars, those clouds often mistaken for UFOs. In the case of the cap cloud, it forms as moist air is push up and over the mountain. Given the right conditions, this air condenses into a cloud below the mountain's summit. However, the orographic movement

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