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2006-03-09 09:35:19.000 – Neil Lareau,  Observer

Starting just before sunrise Tim and I began to observe a sheet of maritime moisture in the form of low clouds back in from the Southeast. Now, these clouds have pushed against the flanks of the mountains obscuring the Mount Washington Valley. Extending from each of the notches and low points of the range is a smooth tongue of stratocumulus that becomes ragged as it mixes with drier and evaporates. A few clouds have now made it as far north as Randolph. Along the Carter-Moriah range the clouds have found enough lift begin to flow over the top of the ridge. A few days prior the scenario had been reversed with low clouds trapped on the northern edges of the range.

The winds at the level of the summit are more southwesterly than those below us and are serving to pump warm air across the region. There is a thickening overcast with light precipitation evident 40 miles to the west.

An abbreviated sun pillar was evident in the moments before the sun itself crested the horizon. Ice crystals in high cirrus, and perhaps precipitating from a layer of altocumulus, allowed for this optical phenomenon to appear as what I would call a super sun, the opposite of a sub sun.

It looks now as though the first round of todays precipitation will fall as snow on the summit, but by tomorrow morning temperatures should be above freezing. Yuck.

Neil Lareau,  Observer