Our First "Spring" Snowstorm! 2019-03-21 09:19:06.000 - Thomas Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist   Our first “spring” storm of the season is set to begin across the White Mountains this evening, lasting through most of Saturday. Although we’re officially into astronomical spring as of yesterday, we’ll be observing plenty of wintry weather from this system over the next 48 hours. This will be an interesting system in terms of strength and also the complicated features that are already coming together to make the storm. Two weak areas of low pressure already merged overnight across the Carolinas, with one moving from the

Freezing Fog and Rime Ice; what are they? 2019-03-19 11:53:19.000 - Jay Broccolo, Summit Intern   I’ve recently had a few people ask me what the difference between Freezing Fog and Rime Ice is, or more generally, what each of them is. It can certainly be confusing. The term Freezing Fog intuitively sounds like it is fog that is freezing but in actuality it isn’t freezing at all, at least not yet. The National Weather Service defines Freezing Fog as tiny, supercooled water droplets in fog when air temperatures are below freezing. In fact, it is possible to have supercooled water droplets suspended in

Trip Season coming to an End 2019-03-17 17:14:47.000 - Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist   As we head into mid-March, our winter trip season is coming to an end. This year has been really fun with all the groups that have come up to spend time with the summit staff and learn about what we do. This year many of the trips got very lucky seeing a variety of weather from magnificent sunrises to howling winds, topping out at 171 mph for one lucky trip! I would like to thank everyone who came up to the summit this winter and

Summit Wildlife 2019-03-12 06:01:59.000 - Ryan Knapp, Weather Observer/Staff Meteorologist   The summit of Mt Washington provides an endless supply of subjects to photograph. Beautiful vistas, wild and unique weather phenomena, plants and flowers, insects, geology, people, and on occasion, wildlife. Wildlife in the winter time is extremely limited. The most common wildlife seen are the Ravens that circle the summit riding the wind currents and occasionally landing if they seeing something that catches their eye. On occasion there might be a rogue rodent scampering above the snow or the cameo appearance of a red fox. Apart from this though,

Out of the Fridge...And Into the Freezer 2019-03-10 10:48:44.000 - Thomas Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist   After today’s Facebook Live forecast discussion I thought I’d take a little more of an expanded look at the longer range forecast for the majority of this month of March. March is commonly referenced to have weather “in like a lion, out like a lamb” as we progress out of the last hurrahs of winter and into spring. Things looks a bit more complicated than that as far as the longer range models are concerned. Behind this storm system which will affect Mount Washington

Deja Vu 2019-03-08 13:39:57.000 - Chloe Boehm, Summit Intern   My last shift, the summit experienced the highest winds in over 30 years and a record-setting wind speed for the month of February at 171 mph. The shift before that, the summit saw, at the time, the highest winds in over a decade at 148 mph. Now looking at the upcoming system this weekend, the summit is poised to see winds gusting over 100 mph, which would be the highest winds since the 171 mph storm. So for the past three shifts, we experienced one high wind event amidst many

A February Edutrip Adventure 2019-03-08 11:24:53.000 - Rob Schaefer, San Antonio Texas, Winter EduTrip Adventurer and Boston Rotary Survivor   On our first attempt, we had trouble getting to the top of Mount Washington … a week later on our second attempt, we had trouble getting to the bottom of Mount Washington …Many words come to mind when attempting to describe our February EduTrip adventure: awesome, spectacular, record breaking but the word that seems to describe the trip best for me is humbling. We like to think we have control of our own destiny but it’s humbling to realize that

Getting More From Mount Washington 2019-03-06 16:16:44.000 - Jamie Bourassa, Edu Trip Member, Saunderstown RI   Hiking in the White Mountains last summer I saw an “Extreme Mt Washington” poster showing winter mountain views, rime ice and a snow cat. It got my imagination rolling and after becoming an MWOBS member I signed up for a Mountaineering Overnight Edu trip.   The adventure started in the fall as I began to collect the extensive list of equipment to prepare for potential -40F temperature and wind chill. As the trip approached excitement was tempered by every person challenging me to why

Broadening My Horizons on the Alpine Tundra 2019-03-05 18:40:07.000 - Ian Bailey, Weather Observer/Education Specialist   As an Education Observer up on the summit, often times I’m tasked with developing and delivering programs based on weather and Mount Washington. It’s something that I’ve become very comfortable doing over the past few months, and I’ve become very passionate about my work. I like being able to share my knowledge about weather, and doing so in such a way that people can understand and better relate to the summit makes me very, very happy! Aside from learning the intricacies of mountain weather,

Not on the windy shift this Year 2019-03-04 02:01:43.000 - Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist   Last Monday on February 25th, the summit saw some pretty incredible winds and I was not able to come up and witness it myself! Since I have started working here in August of 2015, I have been hoping to see the wind go off the chart. I have come close on several occasions, even just recently on January 22nd when the winds got to 137 and gusted just to the edge of the chart but not off. This year we have had 2 storms,