New Tool in Trip Planning

[bikehikeskifish]

MODERATOR NOTE - I screwed up merging these two threads and I apologize It combined them under my name when I thought it would just interleave the original posts.

Kevin, Judy and Emma wrote:

The Mount Washington Regional Mesonet is a series of sensors around the White Mountains that monitor the weather. It will definitely take some of the guesswork out of weather forecasts. Rather than rely on a "forecast" it will have real time data.

http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/mesonet/

This note is added:

Note: Sites transmit data to the website via a solar-powered radio link, so while data is collected continuously, transmission may not be possible if prolonged foul weather has prevented sufficient power generation. The website will automatically update when the connection is restored.

The Mizpah, Tuckerman Ravine, and Lakes of the Clouds sites transmit data once per day. During transmission, live weather data is displayed. At all other times, 24-hour summary data is displayed.

KDT

MichaelJ later wrote:

Everyone complains that the weather information provided by the Obs isn't accurate for hikers, being all about the sensors at the top of the tower, which is well above the surface of Mt Washington, which is well above the other peaks. Sometimes they're right, and sometimes they're wrong.

Have you ever checked out the Obs Mesonet? This page displays wind speed, humidity, or temperature from a number of sensors around the area, including the Washington summit, Bretton Woods at 2200', the Highland Center, the Cog base, Cranmore, Attitash, sensors in Jackson & Bartlett, and most recently a brand-new weather observation rig mounted on top of the Cannonball chairlift on Cannon Mountain at around 4100'. Yes, you can now get live data from everyone's favorite elevation!

Click on any sensor on that web page for historical detail. Sensors at Mizpah and Lakes of the Clouds only transmit once daily and so only have historical information.

Credit to the Friday, Feb 17th Mt Washington Observer Comments.

I later added:

Cannon didn't have wind speed when they first announced this, but now it appears they do. It also appears that the station has a web cam now as Cannon showed photos from it on their Facebook page this morning. It should be available here:

http://www.cannonmt.com/camshot.html

It's "semi-live", whatever that means (it is showing that it's currently dark on Cannon, which I believe )

Tim

 

[Andrew]

Very cool to have a somewhat broad data-set in one place. Would be nice to bring in something from the North Country since Mt. Wash and the notches are right at what is often the dividing line for region influences. We often have our own weather north of Rte. 2 that has a major impact on the Whites as it bumps down.

I often spend a lot of time sampling current conditions from the auto road profile, snowmobile club video cams in Pittsurg NH, select NWS current conditions and radar loops throughout northern NH as well as same from VT including Burlington. This is more often when trying to see if a borderline precip is going to go wet or frozen, very time consuming.

Thanks for the link.