So Close, Yet So Far Away 2016-11-15 17:40:53.000 - Ryan Knapp, Weather Observer/Staff Meteorologist   We take safety very seriously up on the summit. While the nearest hospital is only about 15 miles as the raven flies, unlike the ravens that soar around the summit, we don’t have the ability to fly this distance to immediately to receive help. Given our weather up here, it is uncommon to even get a helicopter up here. So the reality of it is, if we or anyone gets injured and needs to be evacuated, we are either going to be carried down by

A Warm up on the Way, but First More 100 mph Winds? 2016-11-12 15:31:04.000 - Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Meteorologist   After seeing our first 100 mph winds of the month of November along with our coldest temperature of the fall at 4°F a big warm up is on tap over the next 48 hours. An expansive area of high pressure draped across much of the U.S with briefly give way to a passing system to our north tonight, with no expected precipitation but winds will once again top out near 100 mph on the summit, with warmer air surging in

Incoming Wind Event 2016-11-10 16:06:42.000 - Taylor Regan, Summit Intern   An incoming cold front will bring gusty winds and the lowest temperatures of the season thus far to the summit, beginning tonight and lingering through the weekend. Winds will be sustained above hurricane force for much of this time, with gusts approaching 100 mph. Why are we expecting such high winds with this event? One reason is the pressure gradient associated with the passage of the front. Looking at the map below, imagine that the gap between each set of lines represents a “step.” Furthermore, to get from an

An Internship on Mount Washington 2016-11-08 11:08:57.000 - Mike Carmon, Weather Observer & Education Specialist   One of our most exciting programs here at the Mount Washington Observatory is our summit internship program. Interns spend a season (fall, winter, or summer) working alongside summit observers, working their same week on/week off schedule, living and working on the summit of Mount Washington during their on-shift. It's an awesome opportunity to get real-world experience in the field of meteorology, and learn firsthand what it takes to operate a weather station in such a complex and harsh environment. Interns often move on to

De-Icing Instrumentation in 60 mph Winds 2016-11-06 06:12:37.000 - Caleb Meute, Weather Observer/Meteorologist   Check out this video of me de-icing in high winds yesterday:       Caleb Meute, Weather Observer/Meteorologist

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