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2006-05-21 07:26:14.000 – Jim Salge,  Observer

Heavy glaze icing…with a twist!

Ice and snow continued to pile up yesterday afternoon and through the night last night. Glaze ice now coats the summit quite thickly, and 6.6 inches of snow have fallen in the past 36 hours now. Not bad for mid May!

There was one thing about the ice up here though that I initially found quite disturbing yesterday afternoon. The ice forming on parts of the peak had taken a BRIGHT YELLOW HUE?!?! While I was immediately able to dismiss the obvious stigma in this case, the ice did look almost toxic, and I worked through a number of possible air pollutants. What would such a large quantity of ice such an ugly shade of yellow. Sulfur from somewhere? Forest fire smoke from Quebec? Explosion and the PEEPS factory?? The actual answer though was quite simple…Pollen!

Tree pollen is just about the last thing on anyone’s mind on the summit of Mount Washington; after all we are well above treeline, and it looked, for all intensive purposes like winter up here yesterday. However, far beyond our foggy view, and but a mere 3000 feet below, spring is in full swing, and the strong NW winds yesterday carried large amounts of pollen up the slopes. Enough pollen infact to die the ice yellow. Fortunately, the pollen was all in the fog drops, and no allergies were observed!

Here are a few more pics, just to show how bright and distinct the color was. Amazing:

Pic #2Pic #3

Jim Salge,  Observer