Working Nights with a Full Moon

2019-02-20 05:09:40.000 – Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist

Working nights can be taxing on your sleep schedule but there are quite a few moments of peacefulness. My favorite nights to work are nights with light winds and a full moon in the winter. The past few days have featured such nights. The moon has been so bright that I have not needed to let my eyes adjust for long to be able to distinguish landmarks!

One of the nights, the clouds had cleared after some snow showers and I did not need to wear a headlamp to be able to go get the can at 1 am. Winds were only about 20 miles an hour as well so it made for an easy task for once. It is a small thing that is really cool to experience while working nights due to how rare it is up here on the summit. Most of the time getting the precipitation can at 1 am there is a raging blizzard going with visibility only a few feet.

With these nice nights, hikers are many times seen coming up to the summit. This week has also featured a few brave people who are summiting the presidential range at 1 or 2 am and also being able to experience beautiful nights.

The one downside to having such a bright moon is that the light will greatly limit the amount of stars that you can see. Back when I worked nights full time, the northern lights were out on a night with a full moon and it made it hard to see the colors of the lights due to the brightness of the moon.

I do not have any pictures to share of the moon unfortunately due to the phone making for a not very exciting photo. I hope one day to get a better camera and learn from Ryan Knapp on how to take incredible photos!

Adam Gill, Weather Observer/IT Specialist