Warm

2011-01-02 15:44:54.000 – Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist

The Fog Cleared!

Today is January 2nd, but it feels more like April 2nd.

Yesterday, we here at the summit experienced the warmest New Year’s Day temperatures since 1945. The previous record high was 40 degrees, and we managed to top out at a sweltering 42 degrees just after 10 p.m. last night. As a result, our snowpack that was estimated at about 20 inches on the morning of New Year’s Eve has since dwindled to about 5 inches by this morning, revealing our bare deck, lots of icy rocks, and even sedge!

I spent a good amount of my time on New Year’s Eve and Day clearing the feet of ice from off the A-Frame. This was in anticipation that the warm temperatures would weaken the ice, causing large, possibly deadly, chunks of glaze ice to reign down on unsuspecting observers below. It took a lot of upper body strength–weakening the massive structure with an ice chipper and then hammering away at it with a rubber mallet–but I was finally able to rid the entire A-Frame of the potentially dangerous ice.

However, that was not the end of the ice, as Steve went outside this morning and found this piece of ice that had fallen from the tower above onto the deck. My rather large size-12 foot is next to the monstrosity in this photo, so you can get some perspective of the damage it could do.

The diminishing snow pack also revealed a piece of our old RM Young Anemometer that broke off a few weeks ago.

This brief warm spell is all but over, however, as temperatures overnight tonight are expected to plummet into the negative numbers, while winds pick up, producing wind chills nearing 40 below by sunrise tomorrow!

Marty’s happy, because he was clearly disgruntled with the unusually balmy weather.

Mike Carmon,  Staff Meteorologist