Dear Member,
Eighty-nine years ago today, Mount Washington Observatory, in its second year of existence, recorded a world-record wind speed of 231 miles per hour – a record that would stand for over 60 years.
Today is Big Wind Day, commemorating the event.
Although a higher wind speed has since been recorded elsewhere (Tropical Cyclone Olivia, Barrow Island, Australia, April 10, 1996), the Observatory’s measurement of the “Big Wind” on April 12, 1934 still stands as the fastest wind speed ever recorded by a staffed weather station.
The ambitious weather observers atop Mount Washington had been hoping to achieve such a record, yet no one anticipated that it would occur on that particular day in 1934.
In fact, neither the Observatory team nor the consulting meteorologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Blue Hill Observatory expected the winds to reach such a historic velocity.
Continue reading as current Weather Observer & Education Specialist Alexandra Branton summarizes the events of Big Wind Day, based on writings by the weather observers who experienced it in 1934, Sal Pagliuca and Alex McKenzie.