Dear Santa... 2018-12-04 05:09:24.000 - Ryan Knapp, Weather Observer/Staff Meteorologist   Dear Santa-   Another year has flown by here on the summit of Mt Washington. I hope all is going well with you, the missus, and all your helpers up at the North Pole. I know that this time of year is quite hectic for y’all but I hope that it is going smoothly as you get everything ready for those on your “Nice List.” Speaking of that “Nice” list, I am hoping we grace its pages once again this year… I like to think that we acted kindly

Why is Every Snowflake Unique? 2018-12-01 10:17:17.000 - Chloe Boehm, Summit Intern   Since the summit has seen 110” of snow since the start of the snow season (July 1st) and 58” during the month of November alone, I decided to take this opportunity to look all this snow in a little bit more detail. Most of us have probably heard the expression “unique as a snowflake” derived from the fact that each snowflake is, in fact, unique. The size, structure and overall physical appearance of each snowflake differs. But why? To answer this question, we have to go back

A November to Remembrrr! 2018-11-29 11:17:17.000 - Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist   With the month of November coming to a close, I thought I’d take a look back at how this month compares to our averages and our extremes. For our current observers it has been the coldest and snowiest “fall” season in memory, and taking a look at records this backs that up. 58” of snow has fallen as of this writing, with very little, if any additional snow expected over the next day before the month ends. This total ends up being the 8th snowiest November on

Subzero Summit Science 2018-11-27 17:39:18.000 - Ian Bailey, Weather Observer/Education Specialist   It has been an incredibly interesting shift week. We had a great Thanksgiving here on the summit, and Adam and I even got to spend it with Taylor from the other shift! While cooking a hearty meal and spending the evening sharing stories around the dinner table was great, it was Thanksgiving morning that I had the most fun with! Thanksgiving and the day before, we smashed several low temperature records! On the 21rst we dropped to -20° F, breaking the previous record of -17°F set in 1987.

Halos Around the Sun 2018-11-19 13:20:35.000 - Chloe Boehm, Summit Intern   Yesterday afternoon, we were treated to a unique sight up here on the summit, the sun with a halo around it! Looking at the sun (not directly of course) you could see a large ring of light that went entirely around the sun. This phenomenon is called a 22-degree halo. It is called a 22-degree halo because it has a radius of about 22-degrees around the sun. These halos can also occur around the moon and actually can help predict when storms are going to occur. There is

What A Start to Winter! 2018-11-16 09:18:25.000 - Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist   Although it may not technically be meteorological winter just yet, which starts in December, we are already off to a great start to our snow season here on the summit of Mount Washington. Our snow season runs from July 1st through the following year to June 30th, with each winter centered across the snow season. This is a much more accurate way of looking at a yearly depiction of snowfall and the variations from one winter to another, especially for locations that see snowfall over many

"What do you guys do on your off weeks?" 2018-11-14 05:16:30.000 - Christopher Hohman, Night Observer   A question we’ve gotten from a couple Facebook lives this week was, “So what do you guys do on your off weeks?” I love this question because most of the time we are asked about operational questions. And don’t get me wrong, we love answering those. However, we’re also human beings, and we all do a bunch of unique things in our off weeks. Sure the mountain is immaculate, but we’ve been up here since last Tuesday (With a chance of us having

A Windy Start to Winter 2018-11-11 13:48:59.000 - Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist   This year it seems like we have seen a greater frequency of strong storms that produced 100+ mph gusts up here on the summit. Taking a look at this year, as of today November 11th, we are sitting at 8 days since July 1st where we have hit 100 mph. This does not sound like much but usually our frequent high winds don’t start coming until December, then we see it much more regularly. Last year was also fairly windy but there was 7 days that

A Unique Instrument for a Unique Place! 2018-11-03 14:17:33.000 - Chloe Boehm, Summit Intern   In anticipation of high winds tonight on the summit, it seemed appropriate to discuss how the observatory measures wind speeds in such an extreme environment. Since Mt. Washington experiences wind speeds that exceed 100 mph every three days in the winter as well as rime ice accretion up to 9 inches per hour, the observatory is forced to use an unusual instrument to measure winds. Typical anemometers such as a three-cup anemometer or a vane anemometer would not be able withstand such extreme conditions. With

Highest Wind of the Season 2018-10-30 08:34:13.000 - Zach Butler, Summit Intern   Finally, I have seen, observed, and felt a 100 mph wind! Thus far in my internship since late May, I have only experienced a top wind speed of 84 mph. Coming into this storm, our crew had high hopes to have sustained winds of 100 mph and gusts well over. Our forecasts and hopes came true last night with a peak wind gust of 119 mph at 2:23 AM on October 16th. This was the highest wind the summit has observed this Summer and Fall season. I’ll