Mystery 2009-04-04 02:33:45.000 - Mike Carmon,  Observer NULL Instead of steering the topic of conversation away from bogus gender-bending felines, story-telling senior executive interns, and fictitious studies done by mysterious professors with names strikingly similar to current observers, I'm going to keep the string of peculiar comments alive. If you're not a close follower of the weather conditions, you may not be aware that yesterday, temperatures topped out around 40 degrees, well above normal for this time of year. It rained for the majority of the day, with a bit of freezing rain earlier in the day. The combined effects

Balderdash! 2009-04-02 08:09:29.000 - Marty,  Summit MALE Cat Angry Green-Eyed Marty So, after a hilarious April Fool's joke, WOKQ will be hosting the Observatory's executive director, Scot Henley, and the Conway Humane Society's Virginia Moore at 7:30 am. You can listen on your radio 103.7 or 97.5. You can also stream live from their website at WOKQ Live. It should be a hoot! This is Marty, the MALE cat, with some help from Stacey. I am not happy. I became aware of some interesting accusations while eating my salmon cookies. Allegedly, I had kittens. This is ridiculous! A total outrage!

Surprise 2009-04-01 16:15:56.000 - Jordan Scampoli,  Summit Intern Kittens! Recently Marty has been putting on some weight and been increasingly solitary. We thought it was possibly a food allergy. Turns out, Marty has surprised us all with a litter of six kittens. When the Obs got Marty from the Conway Human Society they said they thought he was a male aged about 20 months. After a bit of research I found a study by Welsh and Carmon (2002); renowned veterinarians Dr. Welsh and Professor Carmon found that over 49.64% of Maine Coons are incorrectly identified as being of the opposite

Springtime Hazards 2009-03-31 11:45:26.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer Boott Spur in Spring This time of year for the mountain is one of much change. The temperature seems to have a difficult time making up its mind as to whether to be above or below freezing and the wind has his mood swings as well. Just two days ago we were pummeled with hours of freezing rain, laying a layer of glaze ice on everything. Eventually the temperature climbed above freezing and the precipitation turned from freezing rain to rain, making the summit an eight inch deep pool of slush.

A wet day 2009-03-29 18:06:51.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist NULL Typically, I enjoy having an excuse to go outside every hour when I am the observer on duty. In fact, this is one of the things I like best about my job. Today was an exception; I was not the least bit disappointed to finish out my shift of the hourly observations at 5 p.m.The reason was the weather. A large batch of precipitation moved onto the summit around 8 or 9 o'clock this morning. It started as plain rain with temperatures hovering just above freezing, but a

Oliver Twist with a twist... 2009-03-28 17:09:04.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist It is currently March 28th, which means that March is nearly drawing the curtains to a close. It is a month that is known for coming in like a lion and exiting like a lamb and this couldn't be truer than this year. As Brian alluded to in his Accuweather Blog yesterday, the summit has seen more sunshine than snowfall these past few weeks. He found that from March 13 until the 26th, the summit has seen an average of 74 percent of possible sunshine minutes. This has

Springtime on the Summit with Marty 2009-03-27 15:22:27.000 - Ali Boris,  Summit Intern Exploring the summit on "built in crampons" The warm weather that we've been having has allowed more time outside for all of us, including Marty. My last shift up here was the first time that I had seen him out of the building (I've been here since January 14th), and he's gone out several times this shift. Often he'll agree to come into the stairway of the tower, but hasn't ventured up to the obs deck with me before. On Thursday morning, he did his normal routine

Summit Hike 2009-03-26 17:46:56.000 - Ali Boris,  Summit Intern Winter Ascent of Mt. Washington Part of the essential experience of working on a mountain is making it to the summit on your own two feet. While a leisurely snow cat ride allows you bypass "bad" weather and save your energy for tasks around the observatory, it cannot provide the feeling of accomplishment and acquaintance with the mountain that hiking to the top can. Ryan, Mike, Chef John Bauhs, our cat driver, Wayne, and I decided to hike up before our shift this week. The forecasts had been for a cloudy

Back on Top 2009-03-24 17:25:05.000 - Ken Rancourt,  Director of Summit Operations NULL It is not often that I get to spend time on top during the winter months. Wednesday's shift change trip is usually very tightly packed with people, gear, food, and supplies. And special guests (members of the media, contractors, etc.) usually fill up the remaining spaces. My trip up was with Peter on his Monday Day-Trip. On Wednesday morning MWO will be doing a special presentation to the World Wildlife Fund's 2009 Climate Savers Summit in Washington, DC. Scot Henley will be the introducing speaker and set

NULL 2009-03-23 01:07:33.000 - Mike Carmon,  Observer The summit from Ball Crag In case you haven't read the comments from the last few days, the weather has been uncharacteristically tame recently. Yesterday Jordan gave you an account of how he took advantage of the calm conditions, and now I'll do the same.Being the night observer, it is much easier to get out during the day. It simply means getting up a bit earlier (some days that's easier than others). I woke up Friday afternoon and the sun was shining bright, the winds were around 5 mph, and temperatures were reasonably