Perseid 2010-08-11 23:26:37.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist Be Sure to Look Up! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!Not exactly in the style of Chicken Little, but an impressive show nonetheless.I'm referring to the Perseid Meteor Shower, streaking the skies above for the next few days. The shower is created by earth passing through a field of debris, which are the remnants of an ancient comet. As these heavenly bits collide with our atmosphere at over 140,000 mph, they burn up and create a dazzling spectacle amongst the heavens, visible across the globe. NASA officials say, at the

MWO Tetris 2010-08-10 20:14:25.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Window Tetris Back in 1992, I had saved up my money for three years with one goal in mind: to buy a Nintendo Game Boy. To kids these days it might not be anything special; it was the size of brick and weighed about the same, had a "tiny" monochromatic screen (green) that had to be played in sufficient light, the pixels were blocky (8-bit), it had only two buttons and a directional pad, and the sound was mono. But, at the time, it was THE portable system to have and

Time flies! 2010-08-09 17:26:37.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time passes when you live and work on a mountain for 8 days at time. It's already August, and that means that we start to see a drop in average daily temperature that then continues into the next calendar year. In fact, this coming Thursday August 12 is the first day the average daily temperature drops, from 49 to 48 degrees. Of course, this means that winter is just around the corner!If time didn't already go by quickly enough, it will

Final Week 2010-08-08 19:45:16.000 - Hanna Brewer,  Summit Intern Ahhh my last week on the summit. It's a bittersweet feeling... Part of me is excited to be able to go back to Florida to the sunshine, the ocean, and my friends. I've basically been living out of a suitcase for 3 months so it'll be nice to be back in my apartment where everything is in its place and I don't have to keep wearing wrinkly t-shirts. Then again, I'm going to miss everyone here and the mountain itself. I've learned so much this summer, probably more than I have

Thermoshack Update 2010-08-07 18:45:08.000 - Rebecca Scholand,  Summit Intern Dry fitting the thermoshack It is now time for the thermoshack update. This past off week I spent a considerable amount of time working with Wayne in his shop working on the housing. As of now it is completely welded together and painted with primer. Tuesday afternoon Wayne and I took the housing and new thermoshack to the summit to dry fit it in the brackets. It was a perfect fit. All that is left to do is paint and install. I am looking forward to seeing the finished product in

Datalogger Swapping 2010-08-06 17:30:48.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer NULL Today Brian Forcier and I completed the first in a long series of datalogger replacements. Although we record an extensive range of information here on the summit, it might not be as well known that we also receive information from a number of remote sites. These sites we refer to as our Mesonet. The Auto Road Vertical Profile is an additional part of the Mesonet that runs of the eastern side of the mountain. At each one of these sites, there are probes that measure given weather variables (wind speed,

A taste of fall in August? 2010-08-05 17:11:25.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL The forecast for tomorrow night is looking rather interesting. Between now and then several cold fronts will sweep through the region, with the strongest coming through tomorrow evening. Behind the front, Canadian High Pressure will build in and winds will shift to a cold northwesterly direction. Because of this, temperatures will plummet, reaching a low just at or below the freezing mark late tomorrow night.Of course, this means there is a chance that we could see some glaze ice forming. Whether that actually happens or

Three Things 2010-08-04 23:43:18.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Ice Gulch Since today is Wednesday, it means it is shift change day on the summit. And since my shift has just started, I really don't have anything summit related to talk about. The weather is rather bland for our standards with winds 25-40 mph, visibility at zero, and temperatures in the mid-50s. If we were in the clear I would probably be trying to take in the Aurora Borealis the northeast seems to be all abuzz about but since we are in the fog, that doesn't seem likely. But I

NULL 2010-08-03 20:44:55.000 - Sabrina Lomans,  Summit Intern As my last full day as a summit intern comes to its close, I am reflecting upon all the things that I will miss about living and working on the summit. To name a few, would be the beautiful views, the extreme weather, my coworkers... But the thing that I think I will miss the most is mine (and everyone else's) staff member, Marty. I remember my excitement on my first ascent up the mountain, I could hardly wait, I was going to meet Marty. The weather, the environment, the new experiences

NULL 2010-08-02 17:23:56.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist shiny Who ever knew that small colored squares could ever invoke such excitement amongst the summit dwellers? It's amusing how merely seeing the little squares approach the center circle on a screen seems to fill the room with electricity, especially since the squares symbolize cloud to ground lightning strikes. After a rather chilly start to the week, high pressure has slid offshore and is moving slowly south. The resulting southwest flow opened the gates to the warm, moist air in the Gulf of Mexico. The daytime heating, shortwave trough, and the