February 4, 2010

The (nearly) windiest peak
A climatologist explains Mount Washington’s weather

Mount Washington can no longer claim the fastest surface wind speed ever recorded, but the weather atop the Northeast’s tallest peak is still no picnic. It was announced last week that climatologists in Australia recorded a 253-mile-per-hour gust during a 1996 typhoon, breaking the 1934 record of 231 miles per hour recorded at the Mount Washington Observatory. According to Mary Stampone, a University of New Hampshire climatologist, the 6,288-foot mountain still has some of the world’s worst weather.

Q:Your thoughts on the record being broken?
I think everyone’s a bit disappointed. New Hampshire residents do take their weather very seriously. ...

[Some online posters have criticized the Australian record because it happened during a typhoon, whereas Mount Washington regularly sees intense wind gusts.]

I think that’s still why it’s incredibly significant and important. The measurement was taken in 1934. The technology, in terms of the instruments we had back then — it was an amazing feat that we were able to observe a wind gust at that speed that was that extreme, given the time and resources that we had.

The typhoon happened in 1996. Why did it take so long for the record to be verified?
A lot of it was kind of under the radar. The Australians didn’t think all that much about it at the time they recorded it. They didn’t make it all that well known. It was found by other [climatologists] who were researching wind. 

Why is the weather at the top of Mount Washington so bad?
It is in a unique geographic position. Where it’s located is at the confluence of several storm track patterns that we typically see over New England. …Even though it is not as high as the mountains out west, it is the highest point in our region. Because of that, it tends to get the brunt of the storms that pass over the area.

Have there been any others close to the record?
[T]hey ... talk about it at length on the Mount Washington Observatory page (www.mountwashington.org). In Guam there was another typhoon. The reason it didn’t stand — it was the late ’90s — their anemometer broke during the storm ... you couldn’t really trust what it was recording, so it was determined invalid.

Have there been any other gusts close right on Mount Washington?
During the storm [where the record gust was recorded], they had frequent values of 220 miles per hour. It consistently gets high wind speeds. On July 20, 1996, just a couple months after the [Australian typhoon,] they recorded winds up to 153 miles per hour. In 1980, they had a peak wind of 178 miles per hour. It’s a pretty frequent occurrence to get very strong wind speeds there.

Looking at New Hampshire or New England, what types of weather trends are you seeing?
I did a small study looking at long-term precipitation records. A lot of that was inspired because we had several very wet years — 2008 in many places was the wettest year in 100-plus years. ...

[Stampone’s report said many of the wettest periods in the last 100 years were followed by drier spells.] Is there any indication that will happen?
It’s hard to say. 2010 is going to be the year that might give us a little more information. If we end up being well above average, looking at precipitation in 2005, 2006 and 2008, that would say to me we’re in a completely different pattern. ... On the other hand, if 2010 ends up being more around average, what you’d expect is that we’re heading toward a drier period. 2009, when you look at the totals for the whole year, was lower than 2008. Every year is a little bit different.

Are you noticing any changes in when rainfalls are happening, the thinking being spring is normally wetter?
I haven’t had a chance to look at that. ... In 2008, we had a lot of snowfall that winter and the snow was really wet. We also had a really wet summer and quite a bit of snow in December. Whereas 2009, most of the really high precipitation totals occurred during the summer. The spring was ... above average to dry and the fall was a bit dry in 2009. ... Every year is different.

The saying that Mount Washington has the world’s worst weather — should residents still be confident in thinking that?
Absolutely. ... The [Australian] record, that was a storm, a tropical cyclone — it’s not like they’re having that every day. Mount Washington experiences extreme weather every day.

How unique is the weather here?
I think every region has its own unique aspects. I grew up in Michigan with a lot of cold winter snow. So I’m kind of used to that. Things are different here. We’re in a location where we have water on one end and we have mountains that run through the center of the state. We get hit with the cold air masses coming from Canada. There are a lot of things that, I guess, kind of combine over our region that make things pretty interesting. — Jeff Mucciarone