Snow Melt On The Summit

2012-03-19 18:04:35.000 – Rebecca Scholand,  Operations Assistant

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As yesterday’s comment talked about the summit has been experiencing higher temperatures than normal. In the past day or so it has become very evident by the change in the landscape. When this week started and the summit was still mostly snow covered you would have thought it was beginning of March. Now looking out the window it feels like April. With the calm winds today on the summit the sound of running water from melting snow was eerie. Not only because I’m used to the sound of wind but it makes you realize just how fast the snow is disappearing from the summit.

To illustrate what I am talking about I made three compilations from our web cams. I took the deck view, north view, and west view images from 11:45am yesterday and 11:45am this morning to show the change in 24 hours. In the deck view cam comparison you can see the snow along the railing that has melted. In the north view cam comparison the rock and sedge patches are growing. For the west view cam rocks that seemed to be almost covered in snow are now almost void of it. This type of weather makes you appreciate the variability in conditions the summit can see from day to day.

Rebecca Scholand,  Operations Assistant