oh, you know.

2010-05-06 08:41:49.000 – Drew Hill,  Summit Intern

A Rare Peak Through the Clouds from the Obs Room

I’ve just returned from a 5-day stint hunting for an apartment in New Haven. Luckily, I made it out alive (by the skin of my teeth!), and found an affordably lush apartment to boot. Unluckily, I missed the last few days of serious snow coverage on Mount Washington. I won’t blog the details, as Mike already wrote a pretty good comment about the fresh summer feeling permeating the summit, but I will say: the ability of the weather and ground conditions to change SO rapidly up here is absolutely mind-blowing.

In other news, it’s foggy up here again– huh, go figure. The radar is showing thunderstorms, but we’ve yet to see a flash of lightning. I’m excited! So far, my internship has seen only one other thunderstorm, and I hear getting struck by lightning is a must-have-experience. Ok, let me rephrase that: I hear being in the tower during a lightning-strike is a must-have experience. As rumor has it, lightning striking the tower creates a high-pitched ting– much like the sound a golf ball makes when you accidentally drive it into your girlfriend’s father’s new car… oops– and is followed, very shortly thereafter, by a gawsh-awful thunderclap. I’ll keep you updated.

Speaking of updates, there has been some progress on Project: Good Weather Shift Century Club– for all of you faithful comment readers unfamiliar with this, the Century Club is a time-honored tradition on the summit; a guild whose esteemed members are bonded through their experiences risking life and limb in harrowing circumnavigations of the Observatory Deck in 100+ mph winds. If you’ll remember back to last Friday, I was bent on a bit of a rant about how my shift has been unable to experience 100mph winds this winter, let alone play in them. Well, the weather models show some pretty serious pressure gradients which have led Staff Meteorologist Mike Carmon to believe that my last day up here (Friday) may just bring us our chance!

Fingers crossed!

Drew Hill,  Summit Intern