Heading south for snow 2010-02-11 22:03:46.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist My car, definitely not taken in New England The week on, week off work schedule that the summit staff operates on has its advantages and disadvantages. I have found that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, at least at this point in my life. One of the biggest of these advantages I have found is the ability that having six full days off in a row (Thursday to Tuesday) gives me to travel. For instance, I am able to go back "home" to State College, Pennsylvania, also known as

NULL 2010-02-10 09:13:28.000 - Kathy and Tim Emerson,  Summit Volunteers It's good to be back! Good morning! It's Wednesday, shift-change day, and my husband, Tim, and I are finishing up our volunteer week. First time up here in the winter for us, and what a week it was! The top of Mount Washington is truly a unique place at any time, but in the winter it has a character, and a few surprises, all its own.We had a wonderful variety of weather. There were some days with temperatures way below zero and winds of up to 80 mph (I don't

NULL 2010-02-08 10:55:56.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL Warning:What you are about to read is thoughtful and possibly sappyI'm in a reflective state of mind. This mind set could be the result of the background music, popular when I was middle school, which has placed my psyche in the past. I remember reading Michael Crichton novels, and relating to the strong, female scientist characters. I wanted to be like Ellie in Jurassic Park, or like Beth in Sphere. I wanted to be a scientist who worked in an exotic place. I would borrow National Geographic magazines from the

Storm 2010-02-07 05:32:57.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist NULL With relatively uneventful weather hanging on to New England, I'll take this opportunity to travel to where the weather is for my comments today.The latest major winter storm struck the mid-Atlantic states yesterday, and has been dubbed with a copious number of over-the-top nicknames already ('Snowmaggeddon' and 'Snowpocalypse' stuck out in my mind) as many locations witnessed record snowfalls.The highest reported snowfall totals produced by this storm (inches):Colesville, MD: 40.0Near Elkridge, MD: 38.3Near Howellsville, VA: 37.0Frostburg, MD: 36.0Leesburg, VA: 34.5Some other impressive totals from around the mid-Atlantic (inches):Near Crofton, MD: 34.0Dulles

Cliche rantings of a summit winter 2010-02-06 07:44:10.000 - Drew Hill,  Summit Intern Closed for the season. My first summer on Mt. Washington was, for want of a more poetical vocabulary, illuminating. Throngs of hikers filtered through the hut I worked in. They were happy, tired, talking, laughing, crying, winded, cold, overheated, bonding, meditating, Canadian. No matter the temperament, passers-through always made for good conversation-- interesting conversation, anyways. Summer was fun.Well, it's a funny thing, being up here in the winter. It's so quiet up here. When I look out the weather-room windows, I see an empty world. It seems

Boooooring 2010-02-05 00:12:11.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist NULL While the weather to the south remains quite active, New Englanders will suffer from a streak of relatively tame conditions.A few surface high pressure areas will pass through New England over the next week or so, and, along with the proper upper-level dynamics, will provide dry conditions and relatively average temperatures through this time period. There will be no major fluctuations in temperatures, no major precipitation events, and we will even struggle to muddle the sky with clouds! The National Weather Service forecast for northern NH expresses that high temperatures will

NULL 2010-02-03 21:18:10.000 - Charlie & Jeanine Kinney,  Summit Volunteers After numerous trips here over several years this week promised to be a good one. There were guests scheduled for most of the week which keeps us busy and makes the stay very interesting. The most notable stir, however, was news of the wind speed record here being broken. As volunteers, our interest in the weather comes more from seeing how beautiful it is here and how daunting it can be when Mother Nature rears her ugly head. Actually it was a rather "mundane" week with the wind only topping

January thoughts. 2010-02-02 18:46:35.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist An artistic look at the 7 stages of grief? January can produce some the best winter weather on the summit. In the past, it has produced highs of 47F (1995) and record lows for the station and the state of 47 below zero (1934). It has seen 94.6 inches of snow in one month (1978) and winds as high as 173 mph (1985). This years January is not one of those months. In fact, January was kind of a downer on many levels.Let me highlight some of things that dragged January

Fog-driven Stir-craziness 2010-02-01 16:44:49.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer The Northern Presidentials It has been a bit of a cold, foggy week here on the summit. The temperature hasn't risen above 0F during the last three days and Saturday afternoon was the only significant period of clearing. The webcams have been teasing us throughout the entire time, allowing us to see that, in fact, our 'fog' was often the only cloud in the sky. Actually, we are in the clear as I write this and can see the snow blowing off the top of Jefferson, but I don't know how

Shoveling 2010-01-31 14:42:56.000 - Nick Lovejoy,  Summit Intern Wolf Moon Shoveling is my favorite intern responsibility.Don't get me wrong there are many activities which I love taking part in up here at the Observatory, but shoveling has recently been near the top of the list. After I wake up in the wee hours of the morning, I'll pull on some snow pants, get a few warm layers, strap up my boots, and head out the door. I like to shovel with a 'Top Down' approach, where I'll start in the tower, move down to the Observatory deck, then shovel the