Home/BlogThe cold air spilling into the U.S. from Canada is really being felt at the Mt. Washington (NH) Observatory, where winds have been gusting to 110 mph this morning, and the temperature is rapidly dropping (from -11 F now to a predicted -22 F by this evening).
Here’s a current webcam pic of the Observatory deck, compared to “normal”:
Given its elevation (6,288 ft) and geographic location, bad weather is normal on Mt. Washington in the winter, and for many years Mt. Washington held the world record for the highest wind speed recorded on the surface of the Earth: 231 mph measured on April 12, 1934. That record was beaten by a 253 mph surface wind speed measured in 1996 in Australia in a tropical cyclone.
Current weather can be monitored at the Mt. Washington website.
Interesting weather…what was the average global temperature in December and in total for 2014? Amsterdam, Europe has had a very warm fall and winter until now. Trying to sell wintercoats and wintertires has been very difficult for many companies.
I too am waiting for Dr. Spencer to post the Dec. temp. anomaly.
Thanks, Dr. Spencer.
No wonder REMSS has been diving. GOES is also showing the storm.
This post brings back some memories from my youth!
That seems like pretty normal weather for Mt. Washington.
As a young man I climbed ice in the winter in the Huntington Ravine area. Diagonal Gully, Pinnacle Gully, Odell’s.
We’d make several trips up there a year, staying in a little “no-tell motel” called The Trellis Inn, in North Conway New Hampshire.
We always got the end-unit because it was cheap – the temperature in that room never got out of the 50’s (F), but we were ice climbers and used to staying out for many hours in temperatures below zero, so the 50’s seemed pretty balmy!
Anyhoo… there was a flagpole in front of the Trellis Inn, and we’d get up at 2am and peak out the window at the bare flag-pole to determine if the weather on Mt. Washington was suitable for a climb. If the flagpole itself (no flag on it) was strumming in the wind more than about 3-inches side-to-side we’d go back to sleep. About 2 days in 3 we’d have to skip going up on the mountain and climb the valley ice instead – usually on Frankenstein Cliffs.
I’ve been on Mt. Washington in the winter in 100 mph winds in an ice gully, and it’s no joke. Life on the edge. That kind of wind tears the ice right off the climbs and hurls it down at you with incredible force.
Went up Mount Washington once. The car used an alarming amount of gasoline, and, essentially, we had to coast down – and then found the gasoline station at the bottom had closed early!
Just manged to crawl to North Conway Town.
Got the sticker, though, before heading back to Europe.
It was during the time of the panic law imposing a 55 mph speed limit. I was amused, finding everybody doing 50 in the morning and 80 in the evening.
I lived in NH for a few years. I saw the bumper stickers “This Car Climbed Mt. Washington”. But every once in while I saw a clunker with the bumper sticker “This Car Fell Off Mt. Washington”.8-)
The corollary is never buy a used car with the “This Car Climbed Mt. Washington” bumper sticker.
“…a used car with…sticker.”
Actually the rental-car clerk winced slightly when she saw me holding the sticker.
Enjoy your post 🙂
When if visited there, the buildings had heavy chains stretched over them anchored in granite.
“…heavy chain…granite”
At a rather exposed, private airfield, near me, there is a “weather rock” chained up. There are a number of written “condition indicators”. The list ends with,
“Rock gone – hurricane.”
Didn’t “old man in the mountain” fall down some years ago?
Yep, he fell (some say he jumped due to changing state politics) on May 3, 2003.
http://www.nhtourguide.com/state_parks/old_man_of_the_mountain.htm
Suicide !!!
Mt. Washington = Extreme Weather.
East of the Rockies will experience below seasonal temperatures as air masses that originated in Siberia cross over the North Pole before plunging south into Canada. The cold air crossing the open waters of the Great Lakes will produce narrow bands of lake effect snow, with dangerous travel conditions in the traditional snowbelt regions south and east of the lakes.
http://s2.twnmm.com/thumb?src=//s2.twnmm.com/images/en_ca/12/weather_pattern0105A-43064.jpg&w=690&h=388&scale=1&crop=1
Height of 17 km.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-90.28,74.09,419
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah68/csantamaria/wxbell2_zps5222a2ac.png
The difference in pressure.
http://weather.unisys.com/upper_air/ua_con_500h.gif
Well, the wind has calmed down some, but it’s a bit colder:
The -11F has made down to ground level – my low this AM was -11.2F near Concord NH.
Articolo molto interessante… Complimenti
Been up Mt. Washington before and did a lot of training near there. The Jet Stream kinds dips down there sometimes and thus Mt. Washington see’s more severe and quicker changes than most other mountains that are of equivalent height.
Wildcat Mountain is next door and I have been on it when the temp was 8 deg. F cooler than the surrounding peaks because of the burble that comes off Mt. Washington. Also made it so that we had to descend further than expected for extraction by a Huey because of the severe turbulence.
Trained outdoors in the winter in a number of different mountain ranges in the US and Europe. The Green and White mountains, despite being baby mountains, get about as cold as any of the ranges in the Alps and in some ways are more dangerous.