Volunteer report 2007-12-18 12:31:29.000 - Jon Gale,  Summit Volunteer NULL When I volunteered for a week in the winter at the Observatory, I was hoping to experience some extreme weather. Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of riding up to the summit in the in the copilot seat of the State’s Cat with Mike Pelchat. At times the conditions were white out and Mike had to stop the Cat and wait for some signs of the road. At the summit the winds were blowing at a sustained speed of 85 mph and gusting near 100 mph. I got my wish

NULL 2007-12-17 09:30:15.000 - Stacey Kawecki,  Observer Gotta Love It It’s been a very interesting week on top of Mount Washington, thus far. First of all, Zach is not with us this week, and this is my first time being on days by myself. This has resulted in me spending some time after dinner finishing up some paper work almost every night. If you frequent the website and check out the current conditions often, you might have noticed a very strange phenomenon. On Wednesday, winds appeared to go completely calm. This was not the case. Repeating the gut-wrenching experience that

New exhibits at the WDC 2007-12-15 06:06:25.000 - Kyle Paddleford,  Observer NULL So far the crew has only seen fifteen minutes worth of sunshine since arriving on the summit Wednesday. We have been obscured by clouds and what has seemed like endless light snow and snow showers. That will all change today when skies become mostly clear and the sun shines brightly upon the summit. I'll be sleeping through the day so my total sunshine minutes will stay at zero presumably for the rest of the week. Zach is off this week, so I am covering on nights while he

Naturally 2007-12-13 15:08:37.000 - Karen Thorp,  Summit Intern NULL Yesterday the summit was shrouded with clouds and bombarded with high winds. The peak gust was received at 11:52 AM at a speed of 117 MPH. Despite the blustery weather and low visibility our fearless CAT driver plowed us all the way to the peak; allowing the observers, interns, and volunteer who had worked the prior week to head to their respective cozy homes.Today the summit cleared early increasing the horizontal visibility to 100 miles. This clarity allowed us to see what exactly 100 MPH winds can bring. As Linnea and

Peter 2007-12-11 18:02:06.000 - Peter Sciola,  Summit Intern Monthly Sky Cover Scores Intern’s Log: stardate -316942.46 – This will be my last entry in this log…Somehow this week flew by even though nothing exciting happened in terms of weather conditions. Of course this may all change tomorrow for shift change when sustained winds of over 90 mph and gusts well above 100 mph are forecasted. I guess it is appropriate that the highest winds I will ever experience may occur on my last day here on the summit. As you may have already gathered, this was the final week of

WCBS-2 visits the summit 2007-12-10 11:03:20.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer Some of the crew with Jim Cantore The subject of today’s comment is actually something that occurred last Wednesday. This just happens to be the first chance I have had to write about it.The Observatory has been getting quite a bit of media attention lately, not that this is anything new. Of course, the most notable media exposure was Good Morning America’s live broadcast from the summit in mid November. This past Wednesday we had yet another television station visit us for the day to film.This time it was WCBS-2

Self Interview 2007-12-08 22:29:11.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Staff Meteorologist NULL The following interview took place in an observer’s head between Imaginary Reporter (IR) and Staff Meteorologist (SM) the night of December 8th, 2007:IR: Good evening and thanks for having me here. For the record, spell your name and where you are from. SM: Sure. It’s Ryan, R-Y-A-N, Knapp, K-N-A-P-P from Berlin, B-E-R-L-I-N, New Hampshire, N-H.IR: Great, thanks. Alright, let’s start with the weather. What’s happening outside right now? SM: Well, at the last observation, we had blowing snow and freezing fog with a visibility of 1/16 of a mile and

Server Room 2007-12-07 18:12:10.000 - Steve Welsh,  IT Observer View From Tower 120707 “So Steve, my buddy, can you move the two racks from the library to the server room” said Ken during Wednesday’s shift change.“Yes sure no problem” I naively replied.Little did I know that to get to the said racks would entail excavating through years of accumulated flotsam, discarded debris and the remains of past projects. After several hours of cleaning and sorting, the racks are now in the server room and the library is once again accessible. Some of the more interesting items found included an old

Nins Retirement 2007-12-06 17:05:58.000 - Brian Clark,  Observer Nin, hard at work like always So I guess the proverbial cat is out of the bag. No pun intended.Those that were able to watch the Good Morning America broadcast on November 19th were the first to find out that our beloved Observatory cat, Nin, will be retiring from his post on the summit in a few weeks. Quite a bit of discussion ensued in our forums. Of course, if you didn’t get to see the Good Morning America broadcast and don’t peruse our forums, then you may not have known until

Katherine 2007-12-05 08:36:20.000 - Katherine MacDonald,  Summit Volunteer Low Lying Clouds Here I am again in one of my favorite places to volunteer. Each time there are familiar faces and new greeting me. Always welcoming. Each group making my experience up here fresh. This particular group, as with the others, young, intelligent and ambitious. Eager to learn and share. With 3 young ladies as part of the crew this time, I have to admit it’s been especially pleasant for me. Also there are the State Park personnel that are next door. They are essential to the smooth running of the