Another volunteer week with new excitement 2008-03-04 17:05:33.000 - Dick Lindstrrom,  Summit Volunteer NULL After serving a winter week as a volunteer for over 8 years, I thought I had seen everything. However, the mountain always has a new surprise around the corner. In the past years, I have seen the temperature hit a record daily high of 34 and then the following day, hit a record daily low of -26. I’ve seen winds constantly over 100 mph for 12 hours. This year after 5 days of near zero (above and below) temperatures and winds varying from near zero to

Slide Show 2008-03-03 18:34:56.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist Sunrise Cap Cloud With the end of one month (February) and the start of another (March), that means one thing for the staff meteorologist: Monthly Summary. This is when I crunch through the numbers and find out climatological stats for the summit. I always like to relay this information on to you the reader by an interesting method each month. So for this month, I will relate the information by a slide show of sorts. So I will be like the friend or neighbor that forces you (usually after a dinner

Lots of Shoveling! 2008-03-02 15:51:48.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer Big drift Since last Tuesday, about 21 inches of snowfall has been measured on the summit. A good portion of that snow fell on relatively light winds. This left a lot of loose snow about treeline, just waiting for the right wind speeds to whisk it away into the ravines and snowfields. Well, we finally got those wind speeds last night and into today, and trust me, there is no shortage of snow blowing around out there. In fact, enough snow has been getting swept into the ravines for the USFS

German Trip 2008-03-01 17:59:24.000 - Steve Welsh,  IT Observer Auto Road At Cow Pasture For several years now the Observatory has played host, each winter season, to a group of students from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. They spend a week up here and work on a variety of weather and climatologically related projects. This year they were over for a week in early January with their leader Dr Andreas Pflitsch. For the first time Andreas is also bringing over a group from the University of Essen and right on schedule they arrived in the US yesterday. The plan was

Back at the Summit 2008-02-29 14:49:04.000 - Matthew Morin,  Space Grant Intern Mount Washington Sunrise. Hello everyone! Today is one of those days where I had no qualms with setting my alarm clock to earlier than usual. My motivation… a Mount Washington sunrise with virtually cloudless skies and light winds. I didn’t want to miss this rare sight given that the summit is usually in the clouds.My workload for this week consists of 95% research and 5% observer duties. For research, I’m analyzing ARVTP data with the hopes of making sense of inversions that set up along the mountain throughout

Time is all about what side you are on. 2008-02-28 03:00:54.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist In one of my American Studies classes I took, I was introduced to Zall’s Second Law which was about time. It goes: “How long a minute is, depends on which side of the bathroom door you are on.” Working at Mount Washington, I have tweaked this to reflect our feelings on time. It goes “How long a minute is, depends on which side of shift change you are on.” I like to call this Wednesdays First Law.As you may or may not be aware,

Short Storm Update 2008-02-27 03:01:56.000 - Kyle Paddleford,  Observer These were not here a few hours ago As of one o’clock this morning we had picked up just over 5 inches of new snow and it continues to fall lightly. Winds have remained fairly light, relatively speaking, through the storm but high enough to drift the snow around. I was quite surprised to see deep drifts on my way out to get the precipitation can after midnight, and figured there had to be upwards of a foot in the can but this was not the case. For most of the

Sarah 2008-02-25 20:57:20.000 - Summit Volunteer,  Summit Volunteer NULL Today is Monday, which makes it my 5th day on top of the mountain. The past 5 days have given the volunteers and the crew some amazing views: from sunrises (that I have regrettably been too tired to get up for) and sunsets, to beautiful views of the snow dusted "Presies," to glimpses of the sun reflecting off of the ocean, and the gorgeous, glittering rime ice that covers every surface of the summit outside. Isn’t this Mt Washington? The home of severe, brutal, unforgiving weather? The most "severe" thing I've

another comment 2008-02-24 20:20:57.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer undercast and alpine glow Two days in a row with absolutely beautiful weather …the real kicker, it’s going to last into tomorrow. I can scarcely remember the last time I got this much sunshine at the summit, it was probably sometime in early October! Three days and three nights of being in the clear, with very little sky cover is almost unheard of. However, our bubble is about to be tragically popped, and a new smaller bubble of hope will be formed. In the past couple of weeks, the nice fluffy snow

NULL 2008-02-24 01:14:24.000 - Kyle Paddleford,  Observer EduTrippers enjoying the sunset We did miss the lunar eclipse of a few nights ago due to the ever present fog, however the moon has been shining bright ever since which has really helped out with nighttime observations. It was really bad timing too. The summit went into the fog just prior to the start of the eclipse, and then we broke out of the fog a few hours after the event was done. I guess we’ll have to try again in a few more years. With the exception of missing the eclipse,