A wonderful week! 2009-09-29 16:56:35.000 - Barbara Kresse,  Summit Volunteer Hi, my name is Barbara Kresse, I've been the OBS volunteer for the week and can't believe it is almost over. I spend lots of time cooking with the big old gas stove, from the well stocked larder, but there is time to have fun and explore outside. It is so awesome here, you have to see it in person (when it's clear). One day we could see 135 miles to the Adirondacks, but other days just 25 feet was visible. It rained, and we had a high of 74

Building things... 2009-09-28 20:00:26.000 - Will Tourtellot,  Summit Intern Some of you may have noticed that our North View webcam was out yesterday (Sunday). That is because Brian Clark and I spent a good portion of the day fabricating a new shelf for the webcam. During the winter our windows become covered in thick rime ice so to combat this icing we have a heater right next to the north view webcam to keep the window relatively ice free. In the past, this hasn't been terribly effective, so our goal was to build a snug little home for both the

Cold is a Relative Thing 2009-09-27 17:15:37.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Fall with frosted winter tips. The digital age has made communicating important and relevant information speedy and efficient but it has also sped the dispersion of irrelevant information as well. If you have an email account whether at work or for personal use, at some point you are going to get on someone's forwarding list or spam list consisting of "bad" jokes, useless information and advertisements. Sometimes we know the forwarding party responsible for sending us the sheep jokes or blonde jokes but then other times, we get

Contrasting colors 2009-09-26 16:08:38.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist Colors starting to pop in the north Fall is a great time of year, in my opinion, both on and off the mountain. One of my favorite things about fall on the mountain is the difference between the colors on the summit and the colors showing up in the valley. All the alpine vegetation here on the summit, by this time in the year, has turned back to its usual shades of brown (it's only green for a month or so during the summer). This is contrasted by the shades

Winter Weather 2009-09-25 15:46:56.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer First Ride of the Season! Winter is not quite in full force on the summit yet, but it is not too far off either. I awoke this morning to the sights, sounds, and smells of winter all around me. By sights, I guess I initially mean the lack of sights as the windows overlooking the northern peaks were covered over in rime and glaze. I headed outside to inspect the condition of the observation deck. Winds had been strong enough to build up a fair amount of rime on the deck,

Reflection On Extreme Weather 2009-09-24 13:57:11.000 - Will Tourtellot,  Summit Intern Amazing Cloud Formations from Sept. 14th Yesterday marked the beginning of my third week on the summit and I'm more excited than ever to be back on this mysterious mountain. Not much has happened, in the way of weather, since my last comment, except for the rime ice and 91 mph gust from this past Saturday, Sept 19th. I'm extremely jealous that Mary-Ellen Dunn, my counterpart on last week's shift, was able to experience the first "cough" of winter! It seems that I have a penchant for experiencing extreme

NULL 2009-09-23 07:33:08.000 - Sharon Camp and Sandy Fisher,  Summit Volunteers Mountain Top High Friends , though often referred to as sisters, we have experienced many "mountain top" highs through years of volunteer trips near and far. Raised in neighboring Lancaster, Sharon had never been to the summit of Mt Washington. Volunteering as cooks for the Observatory crew became a bucket list priority. We have totally enjoyed cooking our favorites for the dedicated and knowledgeable staff who have made us feel like family for the eight day stay.Weather wise, we have had the most phenomenal week, one that we could

Equinox 2009-09-22 05:11:07.000 - Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist The Seasons Today at 5:18 PM EDT, a special astronomical event will occur, and you probably wouldn't notice unless you were told. In case you blinked, I can tell you that today is September 22nd, which (for 2009) means the first day of astronomical fall, and yet another summer has drawn to a close. What occurs at 5:18 PM? The autumnal equinox (for the Northern Hemisphere). Because our educational observer has left us for the last half of the week, I'll attempt to explain how this works:The earth revolves around the sun,

Great Weather 2009-09-21 08:20:14.000 - Steve Welsh,  IT Observer Another great sunrise The wintry blast of wind and ice that graced the summit on Saturday has past - in the end it was just a quick taste of things to come . In fact the weather has done a complete 180 since then with temperatures already in the mid 50s and still heading up and winds struggling to reach 5 mph. Quite a change.Yesterday was really spectacular up here with both an amazing sunrise and sunset - it's not often that we get both in the same day. The air

NULL 2009-09-19 15:20:26.000 - Mary Ellen Dunn,  Summit Intern De-icing the tower So, I finally got a small taste of the crazy, extreme weather I have been waiting for! With the passage of a strong cold front from Canada, strong winds, colder temperatures, and rime ice has hit the Summit in the past 24 hours or so. Winds began picking up yesterday afternoon and stayed strong through the night into this morning. Winds were averaging around 60-70mph with a peak gust of 91mph here on the summit. It was definitely hard not to keep an eye on the hays wind