My Week Among the Clouds 2017-01-25 10:24:39.000 - Evelyn Compton Padham, Summit Volunteer   I began my Mt Washington summit adventure last Tuesday before dawn in northwest NJ.   Traveling with my winter gear, my staple of fresh herbs for cooking and a few of my favorite comfort food recipes; I pondered what lay ahead during my 6.5 hour drive.   I imagined it would be a combination of an educational trip and an episode of Food Networks’ “Chopped”.   “Feed 17 for dinner with 1 freezer item, and 3 items from the pantry, you have 60 minutes and you

January Thaw: Statistical Event or Folklore? 2017-01-23 16:13:25.000 - Nathan Flinchbaugh, Summit Intern   A few short days ago, the summit of Mount Washington popped above the freezing mark for two straight days. January 20th, the first of these two, was a day in which sunshine soaked the Presidential Range and the highest wind gust for the day reached an extremely modest 37 mph. The observers compared it to a typical mid-May afternoon. While I was outside in the mild conditions, I couldn’t help but think about the so-called “January thaw,” a heavily used term to describe a brief period

January: A Month of Extremes 2017-01-21 09:58:31.000 - Taylor Regan, Weather Observer   Yesterday, the summit saw a high of 35 degrees. The sky above was bright blue and nearly cloudless, with a blanket of undercast surrounding the mountain in every direction, and only the tallest of surrounding peaks poking through. Winds were in the 10-25 mph range with a peak gust in the early morning of 37 mph. All in all it was a great day. Did we break any records? No, but it was definitely above average. What are some things that make January a unique month up

Thrilled to be Back! 2017-01-18 11:04:28.000 - Nathan Flinchbaugh, Summit Intern   Hello from Mount Washington! My name is Nathan Flinchbaugh, and I am thrilled to have the chance to experience winter on the Rockpile in the form of a summit intern. If my name for some reason sounds at all familiar, I was also here as an intern in the Summer 2015 season, making this my second stint with the Observatory. My interest in Mount Washington began towards the end of high school, when I was beginning to discover that Meteorology was what I wanted to study post-graduation. I’d

Trip Season! 2017-01-16 22:07:51.000 - Caleb Meute, Weather Observer / Meteorologist   Well it has been a while since I have been on shift during trip season and I can honestly say that I am pumped for it to have started back up! This past shift we had two climbing trips hike up to the summit and stay overnight with us. These trips are awesome for anyone interested in learning how to hike in these extreme conditions in a safe manner. I personally do not have experience with this type of winter hiking, so I think it is something that

Under the Weather on the Summit 2017-01-14 14:05:18.000 - Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist   When living and working on the summit for a week at a time, you are bound to get sick at least once or twice a year while at the Observatory. I always hope that I will catch that cold while in the valley on my off week so I can relax and recover without having to worry about work at all. This off week I did fall ill and unfortunately it was on Tuesday, the day before heading up for this shift. Luckily the Tuesday

Plowing Through Shift Change Challenges 2017-01-12 10:13:08.000 - Mike Carmon, Senior Weather Observer & Education Specialist   There are a host of operational challenges of the Mount Washington Observatory's summit weather station, as one can imagine! One of the trickiest parts of our jobs is the weekly commute to work. Shift changes in the winter time, which traditionally take place on Wednesdays, can be a breeze, with the Snow Cat cruising to the summit in an hour or so. However, this is Mount Washington. The place where simple-sounding tasks become complex feats of ingenuity as snow, fog, and wind produce

What is a Cloud? 2017-01-10 05:37:58.000 - Taylor Regan, Weather Observer   The summit of Mount Washington spends, on average, 60% of its time in the fog, sometimes meaning that the only cloud in the sky is hovering right at the summit. So, you could say we see our fair share of clouds, and maybe more. But what is a cloud? And how and why do they occur? Clouds are made up of tiny droplets of water that condense around particles in the air, such as dust or pollen, and are small enough to stay suspended in the atmosphere. Because

A Great Opportunity! 2017-01-05 17:24:36.000 - Meghan Wells, PSU Research Intern   My name is Meghan and I am a junior meteorology major at Plymouth State University. I have the wonderful opportunity of interning at the Mount Washington Observatory in the middle of January. I believe it is every meteorologists dream to experience extreme weather but it doesn’t necessarily happen when you’re studying in classrooms every day. I will be living on the summit for two weeks where I get to work alongside the observers as they take observations and make forecasts. The observatory is a great place to learn

Second Snowiest December on Record! 2017-01-01 21:19:13.000 - Caleb Meute, Weather Observer / Meteorologist   Well December 2016 was a bit snowier than December 2015 and just about every other December since our establishment in 1932 for that matter. 93.6 inches of snow fell on the summit this past month which falls 10.1 inches short of the snowiest December on record which was in 1968 when 103.7 inches fell. That makes this past December the second snowiest on record! 1968 actually marked the snowiest winter on record with 566 inches falling. I know that up here on the summit, we