Making Progress

2013-06-30 16:10:07.000 – Tom Padham,  Summit Intern

Diapensia overlooking the Great Gulf

Now that the month of June is just about done, I’ve had about a month and a half to work on my project, and things are starting to come together pretty nicely. For my intern project this summer I’ve been tasked with looking at the nature of the gustiness of winds on the summit. The wind on the summit can be sustained at 100mph for example, but on one day it may frequently gust only to 110 and another it could be gusting to 130 or 140. After pouring through about six years worth of wind data from 2007 to 2013, I’m finally starting to get past the more tedious calculations and into looking at the bigger picture of how the wind is behaving on the summit. Understanding what makes one day so much gustier than another will be very interesting to find out, and some of the findings from my project could even be useful for future projects or forecasting purposes in this unique location.

Besides making some good progress on my project this week, we also had our first summer overnight trip, with a few of the fine people from Vasque spending the evening on the summit last night. We had a great time getting to know everyone and hope they enjoyed their time up here and got to learn something in the process. If you may be interested in spending a night on the summit of Mount Washington, information about Summer Overnight trips can be found here.

Tom Padham,  Summit Intern