The World's Worst Weather
This entry was posted on 3/27/2007 7:41 PM and is filed under Photo Trips.
Mount Washington and the Northern Presidentials in New Hampshire's White Mountains.
The Israel River is thawing in Jefferson, New Hampshire, but the above scene belies the reality that still exists on the summit of Mount Washington, where winds peaked at 98.6 mph and wind chills dipped well below zero last Thursday night. I spent the night on the summit as a guest of the Mount Washington Observatory. The observatory has occupied Mount Washington since 1932, and in 1934 they recorded a wind speed of 231 mph - the highest surface wind ever observed on the entire planet. It is a consistently windy place - the average wind speed in the winter is more than 40 mph.
The snowcat takes staff and guests up to the 6288 ft. summit via the auto road.
Matt Heid on the summit observation deck during the only 30 seconds of blue sky that we saw in two days.
Some of the instrumentation in the observatory.
During my stay the summit was in the fog for the bulk of the time. The wind was in the 30's when we arrived, but by nightfall it was consistently peaking in the 70 mph range. By eight or nine o'clock, the wind was steadily in the 70's and peaking in the 80's and 90's. Matt Heid (an editor at AMC Outdoors who invited me on this trip) and I went out on the observation deck to experience the hurricane force winds firsthand.
Matt Heid hiking over rime ice covered rocks on Mount Washington.
The wind was spectacular. When the wind is blowing at 70 mph, you can lean forward and not fall down - the wind holds you up. It is real work to walk around and I can't even imagine what it's like to hike for long periods of time in that kind of wind. Luckily, we didn't have to.
Observatory intern, Alan Metcalf, knocks rime ice off of the observatory instruments, an hourly task, day and night.
Rime ice.
On Thursday, temperatures stayed above freezing, but overnight they fell into the 20's. With temps below freezing, wind blows fog over the summit, creating rime ice on everything. The above ice crystals took about 3 hours to grow, but the Observatory staff told us that sometimes the ice can grow at the rate of six inches per hour. The crystals are beautiful and it is hard to believe they just grow out of the fog.
If you are interested in learning more about the weather on Mount Washington, check out the Mount Washington Observatory's website at www.mountwashington.org. They have a great webcam too.
If you want to see our Mount Washington photo collection, check out this portfolio.
Until next time...
-Jerry
