Rainy Days 2008-11-15 15:08:52.000 - Jordan Scampoli,  Summit Intern Blowing Rain Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. Our shift is yet again graced with interesting weather. Since Thursday morning we have been watching the inside of a cloud, breaking out to see beyond the deck only once in that time. Right now we have sustained 50 MPH winds and moderate rainfall. The forecast is calling for more fog, more rain, more wind. I’m being reminded of my childhood, when all I wanted to do was sneak out and jump in the puddles. Now, even though my research and

Website Changes 2008-11-14 05:07:55.000 - Staff,  Mount Washington Observatory NULL As you see, we’ve made quite a few changes and upgrades to our website! We hope that you enjoy what you see. More on that in a moment.Please note that our web server is also being upgraded to support the steady growth of the number of Observatory web visitors. We will be upgrading our site to a new server on Saturday evening, November 15, between 10 PM and Midnight. As the server hardware including hard drives are being replaced, the site will be inaccessible for up to one hour during

Volunteers 2008-11-12 14:04:55.000 - Summit Volunteers,  NULL NULL Over many years and countless trips here, whether walking, driving or riding, I've made a point of paying my respects to Lizzie Bourne. She was a 23yr. old girl from Maine who died here, within view of the summit, in 1855. It would seem such a waste of life at that age and had she listened to her elders, she most likely would never experienced the awesome power of Mt. Washington. Our arrival last Wednesday found the mountain quite calm and warm temperatures nearly breaking records. The few views we had were

Average October 2008-11-11 23:05:26.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist NULL According to the summit dictionary, one of the definitions for “average” is: lacking special distinction, rank, or status; commonly encountered. Some synonyms listed with “average” are: common, customary, ordinary, standard, or usual. I almost want to write to them and add one more: October. It is not that I hold anything against the month of October personally but after finishing up our monthly summary this week for the month of October, I found it to be on the whole, average.October is certainly not our coldest, warmest, windiest or snowiest month

Obscast ideas 2008-11-10 22:31:23.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist We have all heard it before: Which came first the chicken or the egg? A conundrum that has an infinite amount of answers depending on a person’s education, beliefs, philosophies, etc. So instead, I pose this question: Which came first, the idea for an Obscast or the music we use in an Obscast? For the uninformed, an Obscast is short for “Observatory Webcast.” These are short videos (usually about three minutes) that are produced by the observatory staff and posted to our website every Monday morning. If you are a member,

Changes in the Weather 2008-11-09 15:33:05.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer Winter returns As Mike touched on in his comment yesterday, since Tuesday the summit has been experiencing a heat wave of sorts, at least relatively speaking. Average daily temperatures for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were 38, 41, 41, 44, and 41. Although that may not sound like a heat wave in November to most people, you have to consider how that compares to average. Those average daily temperatures are 14, 17, 17, 20, and 18 degrees above normal respectively. That’s significant. In fact, for the month of November so

Extremes 2008-11-08 17:12:58.000 - Mike Carmon,  Summit Intern NULL Mt. Washington is known as a place of extremes—and it never ceases to amaze. You’ve probably read many of our comments about the “good weather” vs. “bad weather” shift. It’s definitely seemed to work like clockwork around here. But—as I had been begging for in a comment I wrote last shift—I finally got a taste of winter on Mt. Washington. The last Wednesday morning of my previous shift (October 29th), I had the privilege of doing my first bit of de-icing since arriving at the Observatory back in late August during

A rare sight 2008-11-07 17:11:59.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer As far as the weather is concerned, shift change this past Wednesday was extremely uneventful for this time of year. With temperatures in the low 40’s and the summit in the clear, we set off from the base of the Auto Road with both the truck and the van and no plans of putting chains on for the entire trip up. It turned out that there were only a couple spots on the road that had any significant amount of snow left, and those were easily taken care of by the

Summit votes. 2008-11-06 14:54:07.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist I, or should I say, we voted! If you are an avid reader of our comments, you are probably aware that we do our shift changes on Wednesdays. One group of observers, interns and volunteers comes up for a week on while the other group heads down. In the summer, it is fairly easy to go up and down the mountain as the need arises. But since we are in what are considered winter months (although the last couple of days you wouldn’t think it as it is in the 40s

volunteer comment 2008-11-05 09:01:58.000 - Summit Volunteer,  Summit Volunteer NULL A great big “Howdy” to all of you Mt. Washington Observatory supporters and followers. I am closing in on the end of my volunteer week here on the summit and it has been a gas. Stacey, Steve, Mike, Jordan, Jeff and Marty have made me feel right at home and I know I have made some new fair and foul weather friends. I've gotta tell ya, these folks are true professionals. They absolutely love what they do. They truly enjoy taking time to work with the volunteers and embrace their