Some of the most wicked weather in the United States can occur on Mount Washington, New Hampshire, so manning the meteorological station on that windy elevation at 6286 feet can be life-threatening. Winds exceeding hurrican force occur an average of 110 days per year, and a surface wind speed of 231 miles per hour (372 km/h) was recorded on the afternoon of April 12, 1934. Sub zero temperatures are common in winter, and a record low of -47 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded on the 29th of January 1934. Buildings are chained to the ground to prevent them from blowing away.
Top left: "Exterior of the Meteorological Station on the Summit of Mount Washington" Top right: "Exterior of the Meteorological Station in Summer Bottom: "General View of the White Mountains, including Mount Washington" (Courtesy of Harper's Weekly)
A writer for the Saturday, January 14, 1882 edition of Harper's Weekly described the conditions on the mountain thus:
On the summit of Mount Washington, 6286 feet above the level of the sea, stands the United States Service Station depicted on this page. During the summer months the position is a very pleasant one. Parties of tourists constantly visit the station, bringing news from the world below; the temperature is pleasant, and the duties are not exacting. But in winter all this is changed. The mountain is deserted by everybody except the inmates of the station. An artic solitude reigns over the whole region; and the men are cut off from contact with their fellows as effectually as if they were frozen up in a ship in the polar seas. Terrific storms beat against their wooden walls, and it is often impossible to keep the temperature above freezing point within doors. Water has been known to freeze solid in the station within three feet of a red-hot stove.
Left: "Railway to the Summit of Mount Washington" Right: "Interior of the Meteorological Station" (Courtesy Harper's Weekly)
On one occasion, as we are told in Drake’s Heart of the White Mountains, the wind rose to such a fury that the inmates of the station, expecting every moment that the building would be blown over, wrapped themselves in blankets and quilts, binding them tightly on with ropes to which were attached bars of iron, so that, as one of the men said in relating the story, “If the house went by the board, we might stand a chance—a slim one—of anchoring some-where, somehow.” But had the house gone, they would probably have been lifted from their feet like bags of wool, “dashed against the rocks, and smashed like egg-shells,” as one of the men coolly remarked to his visitor.
During the winter all the provisions freeze solid. “You should see us then,” said one of the inmates to Mr. Drake, who was enjoying a summer lunch at the station, “chopping our frozen meat with a hatchet, and our lard with a chisel.” But this is nothing compared with the dreariness and solitude of the long winter months. Storms are welcomed as a relief from the monstrous routine of taking observations and noting them down; and when spring comes to liberate the station inmates, they feel as if they had been set free from the dungeons of some terrible Bastille.
One of the oldest signal lights flashed out messages of impending attack by a powerful searchlight light beam atop the ancient lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt, but in 1892, an electric carbon arc searchlight was used for an entirely different purpose—to forecast the weather from Mt. Washington. And, like the ancient Pharos beacon, it did not go unnoticed a long ways off.
In Men and Volts, The Story of General Electric, John Winthrop Hammond pointed out that The weather searchlight on a tower atop Mt. Washington, N. H.
“People living in western Massachusetts noticed during that summer of 1892 a long shaft of light sweeping the night sky from somewhere in the White Mountains. The news quickly got about among the rural communities: an electric searchlight surmounted the summit of Mt. Washington. It was the largest unit of the sort then known.
An illustration of the huge searchlight mounted atop a tower on Mt. Washington
“To get the searchlight in place was a task to daunt the most determined engineer. A tower fifty-five feet high was to be built, and it was recorded that gales of over a hundred miles an hour swept that rugged peak. The Superintendent of the Mount Washington Inclined Railway wagered the construction man a silk hat for each one of his thirteen workmen that the tower would not last a year. He lost the bet, but never paid it.”
The Saturday, June 24, 1893 issue of Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art reported:
“Weather forecasts are being promulgated in New England in an altogether novel manner. On the summit of Mount Washington, an electric search-light is placed, and flashes its warnings over the surrounding country, the signals being well seen at a distance of eighty miles. From Boston the local forecast official sends out daily three hundred printed copies of weather forecasts for the next twenty-four hours. These go by rail, and are dropped at the various stations en route. At these stations the forecasts are immediately displayed, each in a frame provided by the Weather Bureau. It is found that this is the quickest method of bringing the forecasts under the notice of the public.”
In 1895, electric carbon arc lamps for weather notices were placed on New York City's Manhattan Life Insurance Building, 300 feet above street level. Various coded combinations indicated the weather changes. One of the most elaborate and colorful weather beacons was placed on Boston's John Hancock Tower. Blue light meant clear weather, flashing blue indicated cloudy conditions, red was used for rain, and a flashing red light indicated snow.
The carbon arc searchlight has indeed been helpful in weather forecasting.
See The Electric Mirror on the Pharos Lighthouse and Other Ancient Lighting for much more interesting information on carbon arc searchlights.
This page was last modified on Monday, February 01, 2010