A WEEK-ON, week-off work schedule means that time tends to fly. This October on the Rockpile was no different and seemed to move at lighting speed.
From stagnant periods of boring weather under seemingly never ending high pressure, to early-season blizzards and a comet, October tested me and the crew with some of the most dynamic phenomena we have experienced. All told, this October was the snowiest since 2020 with an impressive 29.3 inches of snow. Much of that occurred when over 17 inches of snow fell between the 9th and 16th.
The snow of course did not fall in a vacuum, 120-mile-per-hour winds associated with the system that unloaded on the higher summits drifted the early season powder into 5- to 10-foot piles on the auto road, sowing a bit of chaos for our shift change on the 16th.
Let’s talk about it.
Our upward journey started as a typical “shoulder season” shift change, we donned our chains and began a slow and methodical drive up. The first big gust of wind and snow whirl impacted our van around 4,000 feet.
Uh-oh, I thought.
We drove through small drifts and increasingly horrid conditions for about another mile before we arrived at the wall. The wall being a 5- to 8-foot snowdrift.
We sent our most experienced driver, Jon, ahead as he drove our Chevy Silverado 2500 to lay siege to the icy fortress.
The minutes ticked by and eventually accumulated to an hour. The wait was enough time for me to drift into a brief and fitful nap. I awoke to a creaking sound that my dream scenario interpreted as the brakes letting go. This dream was especially jarring considering we were parked near a 4,000-foot drop.
Jon’s voice crackled over the radio: “I’ve gone through about a half a tank of gas and haven’t gone anywhere.”
Shift change was canceled.
The mammoth drifts were located at just the right spot, hairpin turn, one of the steepest and most gnarled parts of the auto road. Of course the crew worked tirelessly to clear the road, but for that afternoon motorists were confined to the lower third of the mountain. (As a side note, I am always amazed at how quickly the road crew is able to clear the road regardless of snow amounts. A lot of our transportation to the summit would be impossible without their help.)
For the second time since I started working at the observatory, we needed help from the Cog Railway to get to work.
Ironically enough, outside of the wintry surprise, October was a relatively tame month for summit standards. Temperatures ended up 1.8 degrees above normal and at 33 mph, our winds were around 2 mph above normal. Weeklong stretches of high pressure were commonplace and served as good opportunities to get to work on the summit.
Changes on the mountain
This month our work outside of observations and science included a few intensive projects. These included: removal of an old freezer and installation of a new one, overhauling most of our meteorological instrumentation after our bout of wintry weather, and removing and replacing all of the ceiling tiles in our workspace. That last task was done primarily by a local contractor.
Strangely enough, the new ceiling panels are made of a sturdy plastic material, and the acoustics in our working quarters have changed. Instead of our voices being muffled, the hard plastic surface reflects and amplifies every sound. It will take some getting used to, but at least we won’t have to yell over the wind as much.
Anniversary
This October we also celebrated our 92nd anniversary as an organization. On the 15th, folks from all around gathered in our snowless valley office to reminisce and celebrate our incredible history.
Even before our founding, scientists have had a vested interest in Mount Washington with the first year-round meteorological studies beginning in the 1870s. These first expeditions included scientific work conducted by Charles H. Hitchcock and Joshua H. Huntington, in collaboration with the U.S. Army Signal Service (the predecessor to the modern day National Weather Service), continuing until 1892.
In the 1930s, Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) Hut Master Joseph B. Dodge and Robert S. Monahan established a weather station on the mountain, inspired by earlier pioneers, with successful operations starting in 1932. Just two years into our ongoing exploration, early observers recorded a world record wind speed of 231 mph. The 1940s presented challenges due to World War II, impacting staffing and research capabilities, but work on atmospheric icing for aircraft continued.
Research efforts expanded in the 1950s and included cloud seeding and cosmic radiation studies, while public education initiatives began in the 1960s with the opening of a museum. In the 1980s our operations moved to the Sherman Adams Building, the ’90s saw our valley office open, and in the modern era, the lengthy record of our dataset had attracted researchers from far and wide as we attempt to make sense of our warming world.
Francis Tarasiewicz is a weather observer/education specialist at the Mount Washington Observatory. To learn more about the observatory, visit mountwashington.org. Atop the Rockpile appears monthly in the Sunday News.
