Best Sources for forecasting White Mt. Weather

I typically rely on Accuweather or the Mount Washington Observatory for my weather forecasting. Sometimes I'll use Weather.com. Does anyone know of any local forecasters or any other useful sources of info. to plan for weather in the Whites? Thanks all.

Wunderground! .com that is.

Amazing and accurate, i know ski areas in the whites use it for their forecasts.

Play with the animated, storm-tracked, NEXRAD feature. Tons o fun

Look up. If you don't like what you see, wait a minute.

Plan for worst case regardless.

SLB said:

Look up. If you don't like what you see, wait a minute.

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Look up, if you do like what you see, wait a minute...

Doug

The observatory has made considerable gains in their skill in forecasting for the white mountains region in the past years. Whereas in the past confidence was only had for day one, Obs staff now puts out a remarkably reliable (considering) product for 36 hours, which is about the limit for forecasting specifics about the weather in the whites. Beyond that, all you can hope for is trends, as it is just a very tough area to forecast for considering that often times a few hundred feet of elevation, or different aspect or slope of the mountain your climbing can make a huge difference.

I have long had a worries about many of the independant sites (ie: weather.com, accuwx, wunderground) putting out long range forecasts for Mount Washington. Most devote little (no) staff time to the process for the summits, and rely solely on computer algoritms to do the work. While computers can at times do a good job with the big picture, the models just can't pick up the nuonces of weather over these hills, as the grid that they are origionally forecast over is larger than the entire WMNF in many cases. That being said, sometimes they hit right, as some have experienced here...but they can be really wrong! I think they get alot of credit because it's easy to forecast a good day, and those are the days people make it to the summits and say, wow, accuweatherunderground.com did a great job.

My recommendation is to start with a human interprited product like the Observatory summits forecast and discussion in NH, Eye in the Sky in VT, or the NWS higher summits forecast from Grey, Me (or better yet all three to be really prepared). If you need a longer range outlook than they have the ability to provide, I'd then go to a third party source, but be very aware that this should be used mainly for trends, and you should be watching the skies closely.

just my 2cents, for what it's worth

I use a combo of:

http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/index.php

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick.php?CityName=Mount+Washington&state=NH&site=GYX

(and neighboring towns) (gorham, lincoln, twin moutain, etc)


http://www.wmur.com/weather/index.html

I also use these maps to see how much precip is predicated - not 100% but will give you a good idea if weather is possible. It takes some time to learn them - and the time is GMT time (5 hours ahead of EST)

The NAM and GFS tent to be the best I think?? If someone is a wetherdude, pipe in on this - b/c I am totally self educated here! I would say, I am right about 80% of the time - b/c I will look at the map and then when the NWS services updates, I am usually an right on with them. These maps come out think every 6 hours. Not always, but 80% or so.

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/

weather.com is ok

giggy said:

I use a combo of:
I also use these maps to see how much precip is predicated - not 100% but will give you a good idea if weather is possible. It takes some time to learn them - and the time is GMT time (5 hours ahead of EST)

The NAM and GFS tent to be the best I think?? If someone is a wetherdude, pipe in on this - b/c I am totally self educated here! I would say, I am right about 80% of the time - b/c I will look at the map and then when the NWS services updates, I am usually an right on with them. These maps come out think every 6 hours. Not always, but 80% or so.

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/

weather.com is ok

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Giggy,

Great that you are taking the next step in learning about the weather in the mtns, and I've seen posts by others doing the same. The Nam and the Gfs are the two major models run by our government. Both have their advantages and biases, but there's a whole coarse in that. There are also models run by other countries, and I like the Canadian one alot!

The basics is that the ETA has a finer set of gridpoints from which they forecast over, the GFS a significantly coarser. The ETA therefore sometimes overcomplicates things, the GFS sometimes loses the forecast to the details. That's why there's still meteorologists...

If you really want to persue this further, I'd try a more regional model site called a local MM5. This one run by stony brook u. does a pretty good job, and forecasts over a 2 mile grid. Here's that link:
http://cheget.msrc.sunysb.edu/html/alt_mm5.cgi

For those that this looks complicated (and it is), I would stick with my advice two posts up, or giggy's initial advice!

~w7x

I am with giggy here, but I do take weather.com's 10 day forecasts with about 10 grains of salt - the NOAA seem to be the most accurate, and the Observatory is great for the higher summits.

W7xman - thanks for all the info - will use it to supplement, - I have an odd interest in weather as a whole. Should have been a meterologist....

Fairbanks Museum (Eye in the Sky) from St Johnsbury updates conditions every five minutes:

http://www.fairbanksmuseum.org/wvwebpage001.htm

And you can listen to the "Eye on the Sky" guys--Mark Breen, Steve Maleski, and the new guy... I forget his name--on vpr.net during the noon news... and periodically throughout the day.



They also relay farm & garden and recreation/mountain forecasts, almanac stuff, and--my favorite--historical tidbits such as today's:

"On this date in 1947 much of the northeast shivered with the coldest weather so early in the season. In the normally mild Champlain Valley, Burlington was a record 27, St. Johnsbury falling to 22. But the mountain valleys fell to almost winter-like levels, as Dorset, VT reached 15 degrees, a record for the coldest September temperature in New England."



Stinkyfeet (Who has been called a "geek" because she loves the daily "Eye on the Sky" weather report)

I think the best approach for us lazy folks is to consult a number of sources and pay attention to who seems to be the most accurate. I usually look at NOAA, MWO, and Accuweather. Weather.com gets no love from me! NOAA usually errs on the side of caution (too much so). Mount Washington Observatory is very accurate for the Presis but for other areas in the Whtes, I find Accuweather to be very accurate.

Just my $0.02...

Weather

Thanks for all of the insite pertaining to the weather in the WHites. I have experienced first hand the level of change in the weather there. In 2001 while hiking Mt. Washington on the Jewel Trail, we started with clear skies, followed by clouds, then Thunderstorms, fog and finally a bit of rain. DIfferences in temperatures from start to finidh were in the 30 Deg. F. range. Pretty amazing area for weather.

It seems to me that the two most valuable pieces of hiking gear one could possess are an accurate weather report, and the common sense to take heed of it.

I can predict everyweekends weather - rain rain rain

I plan for weather this way....Hiking with Giggy - Bring Gore-Tex!

Forecasting Mount Washington

As a retired meteorologist and frequent hiker in the White Mountains, I have often noticed a big difference between forecasted weather for northern New Hampshire and Mount Washington weather. Even the National Weather Services "Higher summits forecast" can be off the mark when it comes to Mount Washington Weather.

It gets to the point where one sort of has to make his own forecast. We can forecast a coldest possible temperature fairly easily. Take the temperature at the Berlin, New Hampshire airport and subtract 5.5 degrees for every thousand feet of elevation gained. Berlin is somewhere between 500 and 1000 feet above sealevel. Let us pretend 800 feet. Subtract it from Mount Washington's elevation of roughly 6300 feet and that leaves you with 5500 feet difference or 5.5 thousand feet. Multiply that by 5.5 and you get about 30 degrees. There is a limit to the difference in temperature between two elevations and you will find from these mathematics that the top of Mount Washington can never be more than 30 degrees cooler than Berlin. Mount Washington is usually less than 30 degrees colder than Berlin. Given a temperature inversion MOUNT WASHINGTON CAN EVEN BE WARMER! But you can use 30 degrees colder as an outer limit.

I will discuss other aspects of forecasting Mount Washington weather in a later post.

Shincracker

Weather

Shincracker - Thanks for the insite. I agree with your statement of 5.5 Deg. F. difference per 1000 feet. For years I have used 6 Deg. F. as my average in the north so it seems that we are on the same page.

Looking at the forecasts for Jefferson, NH on various sites I see that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are all forecasted similarly. Clouds, possible showers, etc. I am in town for those days and I am trying to determine which day to be the best to take on Jefferson, Adams and Madison. Looks like Tuesday will be the best day. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Shincracker said:

We can forecast a coldest possible temperature fairly easily. Take the temperature at the Berlin, New Hampshire airport and subtract 5.5 degrees for every thousand feet of elevation gained.

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I presume that you are quoting the dry adiabatic lapse rate. If so, this figure assumes an otherwise (except for the effects of vertical movement) uniform air mass--probably the most common situation. In practice, might local effects (eg more sun warming in Berlin than on MtW) allow this limit to be exceeded?

In theory, I presume that Berlin and MtW could occasionally be in different air masses due to a front or different layers in the atmosphere. Again, does this happen in practice?

It might be interesting to compare the hourly temps at MtW vs Pinkham (or Berlin or Whitefield). Even if your rule-of-thumb is exceeded only occasionally, those might just be times that one would prefer to be off the hilltops...

A meteorologist friend used to quote the relative stats for Pinkham vs MtW (4K ft difference) and for Pikes Peak summit vs base (7K ft diff, IIRC). The differences for MtW were greater. (Not going to mention this in the "worst weather" thread--wouldn't want to stir the pot... )

Doug

Aesop74 said:

I typically rely on Accuweather or the Mount Washington Observatory for my weather forecasting. Sometimes I'll use Weather.com. Does anyone know of any local forecasters or any other useful sources of info. to plan for weather in the Whites? Thanks all.

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A day late and short of a good answer........

there is a REALLY good reason why the MWO doesn't forecast out X days, it's because they just can't reliably do so, they know so, and just won't go there.

MWO is up there to OBSERVE, and they feed their observations to NOAA and thence NOAA to the proprietary contractuals. It is a lot of data for every hourly observation 24/7 that feeds into the information stream, helping to forecast weather for Points East and North.

They very well know at MWO that they can't forecast out more than 12-24 hours beyond their current data. They get blindsided too frequently with what erupts over the Rockpile, and becomes more data to feed downline, changing forecasts for everyone.

Bottom line, the best RELIABLE forecast for the Higher Summits in the Whites is the realtime OBS daily regional forcest, supplemented by checking in with AMC for the current hourly summit observation. Yes, that gives you Today's forecast, nothing RELIABLE for tomorrow or next week.

There is no good answer. Mt Washington weather is simply NOT predictable .

You have to get your head around that to be truly prepared for what MIGHT happen.

There is no safety on Mt Washington outside your own margin of preparedness.


Breeze