The Winds of March

2015-03-05 14:11:11.000 – Michael Kyle, Weather Observer/IT Specialist

After the long brutal winter New England has been seeing so far this year, we are all looking for a slight break. Like Tom mentioned yesterday, that break seems to be likely in coming days. This made me think about the old saying “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” I then asked myself, “How accurate is its meaning is for the summit of Mount Washington? Does that saying even apply up here?

To get a quick and simple answer to these questions, I looked through our weather records. Particularly the hourly wind speeds and daily peak wind gusts for the month of March from 1935-2014. Then, I split the month into two halves (March 1^st-15^th, and March 16^th-31^st), and calculated the average hourly wind speeds and the average daily peak wind gusts for each half. See the chart below

As you can see there is a slight drop in both the average hourly wind speeds and average daily peak wind gusts in the second half of the month. With just a quick look at just our wind records it does seem like the old wives tale does slightly stand true here on the summit. Though, I wouldn’t quite say out like a lamb is accurate, unless it is a very angry lamb.

Michael Kyle, Weather Observer/IT Specialist

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