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2010-05-21 14:57:03.000 – Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist

Shimmering Shower

In the spirit of Steve’s comment yesterday, change is the word.

Summer is in full swing, and there are some new faces on the summit. Deb is back as our summit museum attendant, we have a new intern, Sabrina, and we are expecting our second summer intern, Kristin, tomorrow. You’ll be hearing from them firsthand later this shift.

Despite the more temperate summer season, changes in daily weather are still perfectly normal. Yesterday was a prime example, as a weak cold front charged through New England.

Watching the radar over New Hampshire yesterday afternoon was quite humdrum, until about 4 p.m., when a few isolated showers began to pop up near the Canadian border. Many of the showers made their way southeastward, but dissipated quite rapidly as they collided with the dry air mass that was entrenched over northern NH.

One shower, however, managed to muster some strength and intensified as it approached the summit from the northwest. We found ourselves in the unique position of being able to witness the life cycle of this shower for quite some time as it neared our mountaintop location thanks to a lack of foggy conditions. Because of the isolated nature of these showers, some fairly spectacular effects were evident. Pictured above is one such view that I found particularly awe-inspiring. You can clearly distinguish the falling rain, but the added effect of the sunshine yielded the appearance of what I like to think of as a ‘shimmering shower.’

The shower held its act together long enough to give us a fifteen minute period of light rain, after which we found ourselves immersed in a thick, soupy fog once again. The fog cleared just before midnight, and that very well could be the last we see of it until our Wednesday departure (don’t take that to the bank, though).

Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist