Heat Wave 2010-04-02 04:58:34.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist No volcanoes, but a fiery sky indeed By now, I sincerely hope you, avid and loyal observer comment reader, have come to the realization that Mt. Adams is, indeed, not spewing lava down its slopes into the Great Gulf and onto the surrounding Northern Presidentials. No portion of yesterday's comment was in any way true. We really need to keep a more watchful eye on those capricious interns...they seem to get outlandishly creative around April 1st. Drew's choice of folly is not without a tad of irony, however, as the exceptionally

Magma Floes 2010-04-01 07:35:48.000 - Drew Hill,  Summit Intern Never before seen: volcanic activity in the Whites This morning, we woke with a start. I, for one, thought the rumbling was just some ice crashing onto the roof of our sleeping quarters from the tower. So, as any 20-something male would do, I went back to sleep. Or tried, at least.The rumbling didn't stop.Realizing something must be wrong (was the furnace malfunctioning?), I stumbled out of bed to find Mike-- the night observer-- to see just what was going on. To my surprise, everyone was up. Mike was barking orders

Vol report. 2010-03-31 05:57:38.000 - Sue Rose,  Summit Volunteer Summit during sunrise during my week. I've had an amazingly varied and astonishingly beautiful week as one of the volunteer cooks at the Mount Washington Observatory. Tonight, while listening to the drenching rain and winds lashing the Observatory, I've had a chance to think back to many of my experiences and the people and photos to go with them. My friend Dan Stone and I have been cooking for up to 16 people this week, as well as having the unique opportunity to experience and photograph life at the Observatory and

Nick's last 2010-03-30 13:58:54.000 - Nick Lovejoy,  Summit Intern The Summit Crew with Paul and Mr. Snowflake Today is sort of a sad day for me. This is because today is my last day of work up here on the summit. On Thursday 4/1 I will begin taking phlebotomy courses for a job I will be starting at the Faustman diabetes research lab at Mass General Hospital in Boston. Although I hear that drawing blood is truly an art and will be quite exciting, I'm sure that the required skill set will be quite different.I have had an amazing experience

Tent Testing on Mt. Washington 2010-03-29 21:09:43.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer As Ryan mentioned yesterday, we have some new additions to the observation deck. Depending upon when you looked, we may have had more or less additions to the deck. These additions were 4-season mountaineering tents from various companies that Backpacker Magazine has enlisted the Observatory to test and review. The crew set them up yesterday first inside the shelter of the building to become familiar with them, then moved outdoors to the relatively benign conditions as far as the summit is concerned. We set up three tents, with

False alarm 2010-03-28 18:18:49.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist A better alternative to watching TV/web surfing! It never ceases to amaze me how in just a few years, how connected and dependant on the internet we have all become. When I graduated from high school I didn't have an email, a facebook or myspace page, videos took hours to load, the "song" of the modem dialing up was embedded to memory, and research was done by visiting the local library. During the start of this decade when I got to college, I got an email, T1 lines on campus extinguished

family trip 2010-03-27 17:59:39.000 - Nick Lovejoy,  Summit Intern Ken and Family Yesterday was an exciting day for me. My family got a chance to come up to the summit for a brief day trip with Ken Rancourt and Scot Henley. My Uncle Denny, Aunt Lisa, Laurie my mom, and Cousin Sarah all rode up in the tractor yesterday morning.I couldn't have asked for better weather. It was zero degrees with gusts up to 60 mph and miles of clear visibility. If they had come up on a 29 degree day with no wind I'm sure they would have been

Crazy Springtime 2010-03-26 21:17:15.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer A Game of Stump at Sunset Spring is a very interesting time of year. We have already spoken of time change and the difference between the summit and the rest of the east coast (the summit stays on Eastern Standard Time, while elsewhere it is now Eastern Daylight Time). As I was on the summit for time change, I was quite surprised to see it light so late when I headed down to the valley, but quite happy about it too! The weather is also all over the place. Last Thursday,

Shift change POV from the other crew. 2010-03-25 22:50:22.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Ice hanging like tinsel on trees around 4000 ft. If you frequent these comments, volunteered on the summit, sat in on a polycom at our Weather Discovery Center in North Conway, or taken a tour of the summit, you probably know that we hold shift change every Wednesday. And since I started here (Dec '05), I can count on one hand the number of times where we weren't able to hold this weekly ritual on a Wednesday: 3. The first time, we upped the switch to

NULL 2010-03-24 16:55:09.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist Wait a minute. Something isn't right here. Winds are going from 45 mph to 80 mph (and sometimes exceeding 90 mph and forecast for stronger later this evening), visibility is 50 feet at best, and de-icing every 15-30 minutes is absolutely necessary. Could this possibly be the "good-weather" shift? It doesn't sound like it, not one bit. Well, most would think that this is indeed the "bad-weather" shift, as the weather isn't exactly good, and it is Wednesday. That would be a perfectly logical conclusion.It is the wrong conclusion. The "good-weather"