Wind! 2008-12-14 09:33:21.000 - Jordan Scampoli,  Summit Intern GUS Helical Wind Turbine If the summit of Mount Washington is so windy, why doesn’t the Observatory use wind turbines to generate power?I will attempt to briefly answer this question. The general public is mostly familiar with the three blade wind turbine. The summit cannot use this in the winter because so much centrifugal force is exerted by the spinning motion of the blades that if any rime ice were to form on the blades (which it inevitably would, since rime ice covers anything that the wind hits during freezing fogging conditions),

blown forecast 2008-12-12 14:09:06.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer Free falling temperature Yesterday’s comment was all about how excited I was for the coming snow, and that we should remain cold throughout the storm. Well, guess who was wrong. This is neither the first time nor the last time a forecast on Mount Washington has been shattered to bits and pieces. It does hurt a little though, and not just because my forecasting ego took a big bruise. While the summit got a little bit of ice, then a lot of rain, the rest of NH got hammered with ice. Over

let it snow! 2008-12-11 14:34:20.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer Let it snow! Snow is on the way! An area of low pressure fueled by the Gulf of Mexico’s warm air is heading northeast. Loaded with moisture, it should pass to the south and east of the higher summits, keeping us in the cooler portion of the storm, the warm front not quite reaching us. This means snow, and lots of it! In fact, the National Weather Service was calling for up to 14 inches in the mountains.Does that mean 14 inches of fresh powder for the summit crew’s personal recreational

Observatory Christmas List... 2008-12-10 05:30:03.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Snail mail letter. Dear Santa-This year, I am starting early that way I can mail you the summits Christmas list since last year I forgot until it was too late. You really need to make your email a bit more memorable as I keep forgetting and losing the email you provided us a few years back in return to providing you with a Christmas night forecast for New Hampshire. But, just in case our letter goes to the South Pole instead of the North Pole, I will post a comment

Rime-lapse 2008-12-09 21:49:34.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Rime time. Over the last few months, I have been dabbling in time-lapse photography of subjects relating to the summit. As of yesterday, I had only been satisfied and posted one video and that was in our ObsCast a few weeks ago on the subject of our barograph (November 10, 2008). In that video I shot a picture every 10 minutes over 3 hours to show how the pressure trends on an instrument that barely moves. The resulting video only lasts a matter of seconds but shows movement that even I had

122 MPH Wind Gust and Record Cold 2008-12-08 20:10:17.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer Houston, We Have A Problem Some people need coffee in the morning to wake up. Some people need to geta hot shower. Well, I don't drink coffee (it stunts your growth you know)and showers aren't an option on the summit this time of year. Luckily, ona day like today I have the weather to wake me up, in more ways than one. A wind gust of 122.4 mph (our peak gust for the day corrected for temperature andpressure at the time of the gust) at 5:33 a.m.

Novembers summary. 2008-12-07 17:46:08.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist NULL November is a month that most Americans give thanks. Thanks for family, thanks for food, thanks for life, etc. On the summit, it was a month to give thanks to some of the weather that we experienced and hope for what might come. Once again it is the first two weeks of the month which means it is time for me to do the monthly check for the previous month which in turn shows us how we are standing in terms of monthly and annual totals and how they compare

Three 2008-12-06 17:57:28.000 - Mike Carmon,  Summit Intern Snow-covered summit ...And then there were three.The remainder of this shift is promising to be a very quiet one on the summit—as far as staff goes. As Mike F mentioned in a comment a few days ago, he is turning his coat and switching to our shift. He worked only part of our shift this week, and headed down this (Saturday) morning. That brought the total number of staff up here from 5 to 4.In addition, we lost our volunteer for the week a few hours later due to extenuating circumstances. That

About Writing Comments 2008-12-05 15:59:58.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer NULL Today’s comment is about writing comments. I know, that may sound strange, but bear with me here.The summit staff makes every effort to write a new comment every day. Sometimes, as perhaps you can imagine, that can be difficult for a number of reasons. Some days it is not particularly easy to come up with a topic to write about when not much is happening on the summit (weather related or otherwise) and then other days are just so busy that it is tough to simply find time to sit

A Shift Change of a Different Kind 2008-12-04 16:12:45.000 - Mike Finnegan,  IT Observer NULL It is with a similar sentiment as Deb, one of the museum attendants this summer, wrote with after she left the mountain that I write this comment. As we spend eight days on the summit, followed by six days off, we end up spending more time on the mountain than we do at 'home'. These means we spend a significant amount of time with our coworkers and slowly these fine folks transition from being merely coworkers to being close friends and indeed, family. Normally the