Peter

2007-12-11 18:02:06.000 – Peter Sciola,  Summit Intern

Monthly Sky Cover Scores

Intern’s Log: stardate -316942.46 – This will be my last entry in this log…

Somehow this week flew by even though nothing exciting happened in terms of weather conditions. Of course this may all change tomorrow for shift change when sustained winds of over 90 mph and gusts well above 100 mph are forecasted. I guess it is appropriate that the highest winds I will ever experience may occur on my last day here on the summit. As you may have already gathered, this was the final week of my internship on the summit and it is now time to see what is available to me in the ever changing meteorology job market.

As an intern, one is required to work on an intern project during one’s stay here on the summit. My intern project involved taking Mount Washington Higher Summits forecasts from October 2006 through April 2007, comparing them to the actual observations and assigning them a score based several categories and scoring systems. If you’re wondering why just those months it was because this was a continuation of two previous intern projects. The objective: to determine how well observers are able to forecast for the rapidly changing weather conditions that Mount Washington presents. The facets of each forecast that I decided to focus on were cloud cover, fog forecasting, and wind speed forecasting. And now finally, 4 months later, it is completed.

Of all the time I have spent up here, the time that was most well spent was creating and building friendships with the people working on my shift. Although the beautiful sunsets that can be seen here when we are not in the fog are a close second. This experience is truly one that I will never forget and I hope at some point in my life I will make it back here to take it all in one more time.

Peter Sciola,  Summit Intern