UK College Students Experience Mount Washington 2016-11-03 15:58:26.000 - Eric Kelsey, Director of Research   Tuesday, I had the pleasure of hosting 20 students and professors from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, at the summit. We could not have asked for better weather for November 1; clear skies, winds less than 30 mph and temperatures in the low to mid 30s. Best of all, the students were excited to roam the snow and rime encrusted summit in these beautiful sunlit conditions.       The students worked in 8 pairs to measure wind speed and direction around the summit

An Amazing Week! 2016-11-01 08:14:29.000 - Bill Ofsiany & John Donovan, Summit Volunteers   How do you rate your week on the summit? Probably the best way would be to add up all the things that happened while you were here.  One would be getting almost all of Octobers average snowfall coming down while we were here. Then have eagle feather rime ice cover everything on the summit. Then have a storm cover those formations with pop corn rime, and turn it into massive shapes, like you see in historic polar photographs. Fog doesn't do justice to spectacular rime formations,

Happy Halloween! 2016-10-31 22:30:00.000 - Ryan Knapp, Weather Observer/Staff Meteorologist   Happy Halloween from the summit of Mt Washington! Hopefully everyone had (or is having) a safe evening in the lowlands. On the summit, we opted to keep it low key, carving some pumpkins and eating candy that our volunteers brought up and that our valley staff sent up. This year we brought two pumpkins to carve up. The pumpkin I carved out was of Marty Kitty wearing a wizard's hat and holding a jack-o-lantern. The other pumpkin was carved out in the shape of our logo (complete with a

A Great Way to Kick Off Winter! 2016-10-30 16:29:23.000 - Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Meteorologist   It’s been a pretty wild shift week on the summit! After seeing above average temperatures and no real sign of winter our previous shift, this week has been a near polar (pun intended) opposite. Since Wednesday we’ve picked up 15.3” of snow, with most of that falling during our first major snowstorm of the season for the higher elevations on Friday when we picked up 10.6”. It was a lot of fun returning to winter conditions on the summit and battling the elements outside! Our

Upslope Snow “Orographic Lifting” 2016-10-28 19:02:00.000 - Taylor Regan, Summit Intern   With the ongoing storm forecasted to drop upwards of a foot of snow on the higher summits, and heavy rain across much of the region, one question you might have is, why does the heaviest predicted precipitation often seem to be concentrated to one side of a mountain range? One reason is a phenomenon called orographic lift.   In general, orographic lifting is a process that occurs when low level (surface) winds are driven into an obstruction, such as a mountain range, and forced to rise up and

OLLI comes to MWO 2016-10-24 23:18:42.000 - Will Broussard, Education Coordinator   On Wednesday the Education Department of the Mount Washington Observatory completed a three week adult education course on the basics of meteorology and forecasting with local Mount Washington Valley residents. The course was titled; “Life, Work and Environment at the Mount Washington Observatory” and was presented to members of the Conway branch of OLLI at Granite State College. OLLI, an acronym for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute is a volunteer-run membership organization founded by the Bernard Osher Foundation in 2000 with “an open invitation for individuals 50+ years of

Getting Ready for High Winds, Snow and Ice 2016-10-22 17:17:18.000 - Ben Brownell, Summit Intern   Well we have finally crossed the last few items off of our winter checklist this shift and are ready for the storm!  Some final tasks include sealing up a few windows and making sure our instruments that can't handle icing are taken down for the storm.  As I'm sure you all know our pitot tube is our primary instrument for high winds and icing events.  We are expecting to be pretty busy throughout the weekend chipping off all the ice and measuring the snow

The Premiere Major Winter Event 2016-10-20 14:27:19.000 - Mike Carmon, Senior Weather Observer & Education Specialist   A significant storm system has its sights set on New England this weekend, which could result in the first big major winter snap for Mount Washington this young season. It's an intriguing setup to say the least--a low pressure system forecasted to develop over the mid-Atlantic states on Friday will join forces with a tropical disturbance currently churning just east of the Bahamas. As these systems phase together and move northward, the resulting low pressure system will rapidly deepen over northern New England

Job Posting and 2017 Calendars 2016-10-18 18:21:04.000 - Ryan Knapp, Weather Observer/Staff Meteorologist   Having worked here for over a decade, one thing I have learned is that the only constant is change. Every year, winter changes to spring, spring changes to summer, summer changes to fall, and once again fall changes to winter. Views change from 20 feet to 130 miles then back again. Technology changes becoming more efficient and smaller. Our museum has changed. Our gift shop has changed. And apart from me, our summit personnel has changed a few times. Most recently is a change that occurred

October Weather 2016-10-17 14:32:50.000 - Taylor Regan, Summit Intern   October! With leaves changing color, and temperatures typically fast in their descent, October is perhaps the epitome of fall in New England. So how has this October stacked up to those of years past? Overall, there are several things worth remarking on. Firstly, for those who made the trip up this past weekend to participate in our 84th Founding Day celebration, consider this a lucky year! Quite often, by this time in October, the building is either intermittently or seasonally closed to the public, and the summit securely in the