Happy St. Patty's Day! 2009-03-17 20:19:50.000 - Cara Rudio,  Marketing and Communications Coordinator WOKQ morning show, broadcasting live on Wednesday! Happy St. Patty's Day from the Top O' the Rockpile! Today brings us our yearly visit from Dover, NH-based 97.5 WOKQ, who will be broadcasting their morning show live from the summit tomorrow morning from 5 to 10 a.m. The broadcast will include an interview with observer Brian Clark and myself, and general discussion of all things Mount Washington. Be sure to tune in, or listen online!The other big highlight of the day? A sweet new 37" flat screen TV,

Mountain Life 2009-03-16 22:00:06.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer The Raven's Playground It is a rarity on the summit to experience this many fogless days in a row. Although a bit hazier today, with temperatures in the 20's, it is quite beautiful. With the freezing rain we had earlier in the week, combined with the sublimation of the ice, things are quite slick outside, but are perfect for crampons. The key is to be able to arrest immediately if you slip otherwise you're in for a ride until you hit something or reach the flats. Working days, it is not

Taking control. 2009-03-16 00:42:21.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Take control how you see fit. Over the weekend, I have had to deal with the movement of time. On Saturday, I had a birthday and had to leave yet another year in the past and move one year ahead. But such is life, time continues to fly forward; there are seldom any do-overs, or make-ups. We take the good and bad and move forward, hopefully learning from the past to prepare for our future. This got me thinking of an idea for this weeks Obscast (a video "blog" for our

Some nice changes 2009-03-14 16:24:03.000 - Ali Boris,  Summit Intern Lenticulars to the east My second favorite type of Mount Washington weather (next to, of course, over 100 mph winds and only a little precip hitting your face) is sunny with a few clouds. This morning, we woke up to a big, beautiful lenticular cloud formed by the W winds blowing over the summit. It was accompanied by a sky tinted light orange and pink, and glistening ice cover over the nearby mountain peaks. With the exception of some partial clouds, the next few days will be sunny and "balmy"

Molding Young Minds 2009-03-13 14:26:55.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist Unrelated to this comment, but very pretty For most people that get the opportunity, spending time on Mount Washington during the winter is a very memorable experience and often one not easily or quickly forgotten. After my internship during the winter of 2006 (and before I knew for sure that I would be coming back as a full time observer a year later), that was certainly the case for me.If you read these observer comments on a somewhat regular basis, you know that we recently had two separate groups

Summit Intern Agenda 2009-03-12 21:02:17.000 - Ali Boris,  Summit Intern 25% of what I do: bug the observers. When people come to visit the summit, they often ask me what I do while I'm up here. I usually tell them what I do for about 50-60% of my time: shovel, bother the observers, eat, and sleep. But in the past weeks, I've increasingly been filling my days with my research project that I get to work on as an intern up here on the summit.I'm going to be going to grad school this fall to study atmospheric chemistry, so the

Photos 2009-03-11 08:51:37.000 - Gates Ingram,  Summit Volunteer I just had a day of opposites. Most people think of this as the good vs bad, or on the Rockpile, beautiful vs fog, overcast, etc. For me this happened to be two very beautiful days with nearly equal 100 mi visibility and everything as clear as they could possibly be. The difference? Taking photos.I was blown about leaning into the 60 mph wind last Thurs., with -2 temp and a wind chill of about -34. I had to brace myself against anything offering solid footing, shoot several frames to ensure a

Dick Lindstrom 2009-03-10 11:19:16.000 - Dick Lindstrom,  Summit Volunteer Home of the Worlds Worst Weather! As my tenth annual winter volunteer week on the summit winds down, I have to reflect on what a wonderful, incredible experience this is. This week we've seen 80 plus mile visibility and 10 foot visibility. Winds have approached 100 MPH for hours at a time and dropped to near zero at times. Temperatures have ranged from -16 to + 36 F. But the experience is much more than the weather extremes. For the first four days of the shift, we were hosting a group

Intern mess up 2009-03-09 16:08:09.000 - Jordan Scampoli,  Summit Intern Raven Tracks This afternoon held some maintenance work for me on the summit. Due to the abuse our instruments receive, they occasionally need something tightened or replaced. This is part of the reason why we need to keep the Observatory staffed year round. We are currently testing a small wind vane for a weather instrumentation company. While it is an extremely sturdy little devil, some of the screws come loose after being out in heavy winds and icing for a while. I brought it in, took it apart and made

EST to EDT 2009-03-08 10:51:03.000 - Steve Welsh,  IT Observer Daylight savings time started today. This convention of advancing clocks forward an hour in the spring is used to benefit retailing and sports but on the downside it causes problems for farmers and other activities tied to the sun. Well the climatic data we collect up here at the observatory is tied to the sun so we don't advance our clocks. This causes me a couple of problems. Firstly I never know what time it is - is that "obs time" (Eastern Standard Time - EST) or "valley time" (Eastern