Gone with the wind
By Tom Eastman
NORTH CONWAY NH - “There will likely come a day when another weather station reliably records a wind of greater than 231 miles per hour. When that day comes, [Mount Washington] Observatory staff, perhaps better than anyone, will understand the value of the achievement. But that next world record wind cannot diminish the significance of the 1934 World Record Wind, in what it will still say about the mountain and those who have worked there.”
— Dr. Peter Crane, “The Story of the World Record Wind,” Mount Washington Observatory Web page
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Those who love the mountain that locals affectionately refer to as “The Rockpile” have been suffering a bit of an identity crisis all week.
Who are we, we ask our weather-loving selves, if Mount Washington is no longer holder of the “World Record Wind?”
Mount Washington devotees are at a loss this week to learn that the 6,288-foot focal point of the Mount Washington Valley — the “Top of New England” and the highest peak in the Northeast — can no longer lay claim to holding the world’s wind speed title.
In case you missed it, the mark of 231 mph record on April 12, 1934 by the crew of the then two-year-old non-profit Mount Washington Observatory has been blown away, if you will.
In a press release issued Jan. 26 by Scot Henley, executive director of the North Conway-based observatory, news of the new record is contained in a report released Jan. 22 by the World Meteorological Organization.
The record was toppled in 1996 at Barrow Island, Australia, during Typhoon Olivia.
According to the report, the new record stands at 253 miles per hour.
News of the new world record was released by a WMO evaluation panel of experts in charge of global weather and climate extremes. The panel was led by Dr. Randy Cerveny of Arizona State University.
“It was bound to happen, but it’s definitely quite a shock to hear that news,” says the observatory’s Henley. “While we are disappointed that it appears that Mount Washington may have been bumped from the top, at our core we are all weather fans and we are very impressed with the magnitude of that typhoon and the work of the committee that studied it.”
Sure, it hurts some to lose the distinction — but Mount Washington is still a bear of a mountain.
“We are still ‘Home of the World’s Worst Weather,’ ” said Henley, “and just because we may have lost the World Record Wind title does not change that. The mountain is still one of the most feared places on the planet. It’s a combination of bitter cold, freezing fog, heavy snow and incredibly high winds.”
And then there’s the human dimension.
“This is a manned station on Mount Washington, and that the wind back in 1932 was howling and blowing snow through the cracks of a wooden building held down by chains. That’s our story, and this doesn’t take away from that,” says Henley.
Life for all Mount Washington fans goes on — and so too does the work for the observatory, and the passion for weather at the top of New England.
“We’re bummed, OK, disappointed,” says Henley, “but after all is said and done, it’s still the same place, it still has the same fire to get things going and be ready for the next one.”
In other words, no one called from the summit station the day the news was announced to say they were quitting, Henley and Crane affirmed.
“For me,” says Crane, the observatory curator, who first climbed Mount Washington when he was a 15-year-old from Belmont, Mass., and who went on to work for the Appalachian Mountain Club and then the observatory, “we can still say we are ‘Home of the World’s Worst Known Weather.’ And I mean that two ways: one, there is worse weather elsewhere, probably, say, on top of Everest, but people do not spend a lot of time there, so there we are not looking at a place with good records. Secondly, when you look at the worst on Mount Washington, it’s comparable to the worst you can find elsewhere — and yet its weather is known and recorded, and because it is accessible, it is dangerous.”
Both Crane and Henley noted that the sign outside the Mount Washington Summit Company Stage Office where the world record wind was recorded on Mount Washington doesn’t even have to be changed:
“It says ‘Highest Wind Ever Observed by Man Was Recorded Here.’ The one in Australia was recorded by instruments,” say Henley and Crane.
“That’s how I see it, too,” said Howie Wemyss, general manager of the Mount Washington Auto Road, who has spent nearly 30 years on the Rockpile all told. “We won’t have to change the sign at all, either,” he added.
Gov. John Lynch — a past Mount Washington in winter visitor — said during a stop in Conway Friday at a business leaders’ forum at the Mount Washington Valley Technology Village, “Mount Washington, and the summit of Mount Washington, is still one of my favorite places. It’s a great tourist attraction and we’re all very very proud of all they [the observatory crew] do here in New Hampshire, so it will continue to be the number one attraction in the world as far as I’m concerned.”
Take that, Australia!
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The anniversaries of the World Record Wind have been celebrated by the observatory over the past seven decades, with The Conway Daily Sun running a front-page feature on the 75th anniversary this past April.
As that story told, on the mountain that stormy April day in 1934 were observatory staffers Salvatore Pagliuca, Alex McKenzie and Wendell Stephenson.
The story of the record wind posted on the observatory’s Web page (www.mountwahsington.org) captures the excitement of the day:
“As the day wore on, winds grew stronger and stronger. Frequent values of 220 mph were recorded between noon and 1 p.m., with occasional gusts of 229 mph. Then, at 1:21 p.m. on April 12, 1934, the extreme value of 231 mph out of the southeast was recorded. This would prove to be the highest natural surface wind velocity ever officially recorded by means of an anemometer, anywhere in the world.
“‘Will they believe it?’ was our first thought. I felt then the full responsibility of that startling measurement. Was my timing correct? Was the method OK? Was the calibration curve right? Was the stopwatch accurate?” — log book entry, Sal Pagliuca.
Extremely strong winds were recorded later in the afternoon and evening of the 12th, and then the storm slowly moved north and entered a weakening phase.
The storm lasted only one day. Some snow was recorded along with severe icing. The anemometer used to record the record wind was a heated anemometer designed special for Mount Washington. It was constructed in Cambridge Mass., and tested in the wind tunnel at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
After the wind measurement, the anemometer was run through a number of tests by the National Weather Bureau and the historic measurement of 231 mph was confirmed to be a valid reading.”
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In his interview with the Sun this week, Crane said Mount Washington has a unique role in New England, with or without the world wind record.
“This mountain’s lore really is a combination of the weather and its history,” notes Crane. “That combination along with it being very accessible engenders quite a bit of affection, and it’s also a place for adventure for many. But that is contrasted with it also being a place that can be so harsh and unforgiving, and careless of human beings.”
Located within a day’s drive of 70 million people, and accessible in warmer months by the 1861-built Mount Washington Auto Road and the 1869-built Cog Railway, Mount Washington has claimed more than 135 lives since 1849, many of them involving ill-prepared hikers, skiers and climbers.
The mountain’s role as a killer is the subject of The Conway Daily Sun columnist Nicholas Howe’s bestseller, “Not Without Peril: 150 Years of Misadventure on the Presedential Range,” the 10th anniversary edition of which was published this fall by Appalachian Mountain Club Books; www.outdoors.org/amcstore.
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Many people on the observatory’s Facebook page have expressed their feelings about the passing of the record. Similarly, many have responded on The Conway Daily Sun’s Facebook page [see sidebar].
Henley says the Weather Channel called, and he has been featured in on-air interviews with radio and television stations as far away as California.
“The AP story got picked up all over the country. It’s been big news, no question. When a record like this goes down, there is really big interest,” said Henley.
Mount Washington and the observatory were subject of a story in National Geographic last winter. And earlier this month, famed television weatherman Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel spent a few days with the observatory crew on the summit for an upcoming segment on his new series on extreme weather, “Cantore’s Stories.”
It was further proof that people care about Mount Washington, a mountain originally known to Native Americans as Agiochook, “dwelling place of the Great Spirit,” and reportedly first climbed by English settler Darby Field in 1642.
Native Americans no doubt climbed it beforehand, says Crane, but Field gets the credit.
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Sharing a sense of loss with the apparent passing of the record wind distinction this week when he read the news was Rick Wilcox, 61, of Eaton, owner of International Mountain Equipment of North Conway and leader of the successful 1991 New England Everest Expedition, in which Wilcox and three others reached the summit of the “Top of the World.”
Then a resident of Fall River, Mass., Wilcox first climbed Mount Washington as a 6-year-old with his family. It changed his life’s direction.
You could even say Mount Washington was and is his first love.
“I was sad to hear of it, no question. I always felt that having the world record wind was a good marketing tool, not only for the observatory, but for all of us here in the valley,” said Wilcox, always a businessman even when he’s being a world class adventurer and climber.
He said Mount Washington, record or not, is a great training ground for climbing the world’s most challenging peaks, including Everest.
“Whether Everest or Mount Washington, there are limits to human abilities and the weather,” said Wilcox in a phone interview Thursday at his International Mountain Equipment and climbing school shop. “You can only climb in certain conditions,” he continued, “and one thing Mount Washington teaches us is where that line is and where do you cross that line, and under what conditions. It’s a lesson you learn on Mount Washington before you go elsewhere. You’ve got to know where to back off and not make a summit attempt that day.
“So,“ said Wilcox, “the mountain’s a great school, and it really kicks [butt] up there when the wind is blowing.”
Which it was doing on the summit Friday. Mike Finnegan of the observatory staff reported at noon that the wind was gusting to 80 mph with temperatures at 20 below, making a windchill of minus 65. Not a record, but darn cold — and windy, Mount Washington style.
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For more information about the observatory and its Weather Discovery Center in North Conway Village, go to www.mountwashington.org or call 356-2137.