Video shows crews coping with 100+ mph wind gusts at summit of Mount Washington
What's it like trying to do your job when you work at the home of the "world's worst weather"? Recent video captured winds of over 100 mph blowing workers across the top of Mount Washington, New England's highest peak.
"In the midst of making sure instruments were working well, the summit crew took some time to show us (safely) what 100mph winds looked like... and had some fun doing it," the Mount Washington Observatory posted to social media on Friday.
The video showed wind-blown employees sliding across the very top of the 6,288-foot New Hampshire mountain. The crew can then be seen struggling to even crawl in the face of triple-digit wind gusts.
Extreme wind gusts on Mount Washington
The peak wind gust recorded on Friday was 138 mph. Another high wind gust of 130 mph was reported on Saturday, along with a wind chill of 45 degrees below zero.
In mid-February, the observatory recorded a wind gust of 161 mph, the strongest gust seen on the summit since 2019, as winter hikers were warned that extreme winds could cause large and destructive avalanches.
The summit sees hurricane-force wind gusts more than 110 days of the year on average. The most powerful wind gust ever recorded by the Mount Washington Observatory was measured at 231 mph on April 21, 1934. It still holds the record for fastest wind speed ever observed by a staffed weather station.
This week's highest summits forecast calls for relatively calmer conditions, with gusts expected to peak at about 80 mph on Tuesday.
