Not on the windy shift this Year

2019-03-04 02:01:43.000 – Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist

Last Monday on February 25^th, the summit saw some pretty incredible winds and I was not able to come up and witness it myself! Since I have started working here in August of 2015, I have been hoping to see the wind go off the chart. I have come close on several occasions, even just recently on January 22^nd when the winds got to 137 and gusted just to the edge of the chart but not off. This year we have had 2 storms, both of which were on the opposite shift as me where the wind has gone off of the chart (Even sustained off the chart with the 171 mph event!). So far this week has been a super let down with the winds on March 2^nd averaging only 9.1 mph. We are getting a little bit of a Nor’easter this evening (March 3^rd), that is bringing accumulating snow but without strong high pressure around, winds are a measly 30 mph.

It seems that every year there is one shift that gets all the big storms. For the last 3 winters, the peak gust for the year has occurred on my shift as well as many of the other high wind events. This year my good luck has run out spectacularly. It is still shocking that a wind event of this magnitude has finally happened again after 30+ years of not seeing any wind over 170 mph. Though on the bright side, in years in which we have seen 170 mph winds, they occurred multiple times in those years so I am keeping my eyes peeled for another significant storm on the horizon.

Looking ahead at the rest of this week up here, it is not looking much better for high winds. After this Nor’easter heads out to sea, we will see some elevated winds on the back side but it is not looking like we will even get to 100 mph. If we do not get to 100 mph this week, this will be the first week I have been up this winter without a 100 mph or greater wind gust, and as a fan of high winds, this is unacceptable!

Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist