NULL 2006-05-11 07:54:12.000 - Neil Lareau,  Observer "Moist and grey," that is how Mike Davidson described yesterday. The same can be said for today. It will likely hold true for tomorrow and the next day as well. Driving up to the base of the Auto road for shift change the notch looked like fall. Swelling buds of red to orange mixed with the pale green nascent leaves to suggest, at first glance, the flip side of summer. The Warblers have been flooding back in this week. The woods are a chatter of song and call. The summit just looks dreary.

NULL 2006-05-09 01:23:34.000 - Jim Salge,  Observer Taking in the View The lingering ice from Sunday was all but a memory by the time I went to bed yesterday morning, even though temperatures had remained below freezing. The reason, the air had been so dry overnight that it all sublimated away in the wind. Simply put, it 'evaporated' directly from solid ice to water vapor seemingly (actually) overnight. This process happens all the time up here, but to lose so much ice that quickly was rather impressive!Tim mentioned in yesterday's comment that the weather has seemingly been keeping the same

NULL 2006-05-07 16:40:42.000 - Tim Markle,  Chief Observer The Summit from Rime-Covered Cog Tracks As of late, the weather atop the summit seems to have the same 12 hour shift as the two observers…Such was the case yesterday when the cold front pushed through just after 4pm. Temperatures quickly dropped below freezing as moderate bursts of sleet and snow fell. The thick fog which had only rolled in a couple hours prior now was enveloping the summit in a clear coating of ice. Jim had the pleasure of having to de-ice this coating of glaze ice away from the instruments

NULL 2006-05-06 15:03:40.000 - Jim Salge,  Observer Fair weather clouds above the snowfields... An unfamiliar sound woke me from a deep sleep this afternoon, and honestly in my delirious state it took me some time to figure out that the cog railway had made its first trip to the summit this season! The summer season is truly here!The picture at right shows the clouds that have been above the slopes of Mount Washington the past few days. Though these clouds have been nothing more than summer-like stratocumulus clouds, they tell a lot about the state of the atmosphere. Here's fair-weather

NULL 2006-05-05 05:01:02.000 - Jim Salge,  Observer Watching a great sunset from the tower... By yesterday afternoon, the memories of the soaking misery of earlier this week had just about faded, as the weather turned downright spectacular. A morning undercast slowly rose above the summit, and temperatures also rose to their highest levels since before the October snow. And while 47 may not sound that warm, with bright sun and light winds it felt pretty fantastic.By sunset, as winds turned southwest it felt like a summer evening, complete with the familiar ring of haze around the horizon. The clouds were

NULL 2006-05-04 05:23:56.000 - Jim Salge,  Observer The washout that swallowed the truck... The onset of spring has been sneaking up on the summit for a month or so, but the true onslaught of what spring means to the mountain was unleashed in the past 36 hours. Over two inches of rain plus significant melt water came pouring off the summit on Tuesday and Wednesday causing all kinds of havoc. The incredibly dense ice that formed around the building this winter has formed numerous ice dams, and the runoff has decided that it's easier to find a way through concrete

NULL 2006-05-03 06:26:22.000 - Brian Clark,  Summit Intern Filtered sunset They say “all good things must come to an end”, and while I don’t necessarily think this to always be true, this saying certainly holds in this case. Today is the final day of my tenure as a winter intern with the Observatory. It seems like January 4th, my first day on the mountain was just yesterday and the excitement of the unknown and the coming winter was upon me. Time certainly does fly when you’re having fun.Of course my internship wasn’t all about fun, even if there was plenty

NULL 2006-05-01 05:03:29.000 - Neil Lareau,  Observer Happiness! May: As the calendar changed last night I was reminded of May last year. More specifically, I was reminded of the end of May; A period that played host to 154 consecutive hours of east winds. East winds this time of year on the summit usually mean a couple of things. They mean cold ocean moisture banking against the mountains, they can mean heavy precipitation, they can mean heavy icing, and they can mean the dreaded wintry mix of precipitation as temperatures hover near freezing. Such was the case last year, and

NULL 2006-04-30 07:19:18.000 - Ryan Knapp,  Observer View of blue skies with all the foot prints of hik The most common word on the summit over the last few days has been 'Amazing.' The weather conditions: amazing. The views we have been having: amazing. The amount of hikers the summit has received: amazing. Each time that I went outside between the hours of 10 am to about 2 pm, there was at least 10 to 20 hikers standing on the deck or on the rock pile of a summit. But with the weather like it was this weekend, it was

NULL 2006-04-28 05:21:53.000 - Neil Lareau,  Observer Sunset Stepping out the door for the 1245EST synoptic observation and glancing north there was an unmistakable green arc across the horizon: The aurora borealis. It was much like many that I’ve seen from the summit, mostly a green haze but at times coalescing into crisper lines and columns. Letting my eyes slowly adjust, increasing detail became visible. Then, at times, the display would nearly disappear. What I find amazing is how quickly it can change but how subtle those changes feel. Nothing is abrupt, just quick. In a way it is actually