Horrifying, Tornado-Like Winds Hit the Mt. Washington Observatory in NH Yesterday

Mount Washington is like its own country.

That's something my Dad used to tell me all the time when he used to work for the Mount Washington Observatory back in the day. He used to be one of the workers that would drive a van up and down the mountain for visitors.

Ironically, it took me until the month before I was moving out to Tulsa, Oklahoma back in the summer of 2018 to actually visit the mountain. And honestly, I give credit to those trolley drivers, because driving up and down that mountain is horrifying -- and I was in a little Honda Civic. They drive big passenger vans.

But I digress.

Mount Washington Weather

Like my Dad said and I confirmed first-hand when I drove to the peak of the mountain myself, Mount Washington is like its own country, weather-wise anyway. When I started the 6,288-foot trek up the mountain, it was bright, sunny, and in the upper 80s.

When I reached the peak the fog was so thick and it was so windy that you literally couldn't see a couple feet in front of you. As a dude with not many phobias, I realized that day I had "ThickFogaphobia" that day and didn't even bother walking around the peak at all.

I got back in my car and got the hell out of there. It wasn't until the Summer of 2021 that I returned to Mount Washington, was driven up in a trolley, and actually walked around the peak and Observatory. But sweet baby Jesus is it beautiful up there.

But, it can also be terrifying.

Mount Washington Observatory

When you've reached the peak of Mount Washington, walking around the Observatory you can actually see the rest of New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and from what I was told, on a very clear day, New York. Even parts of Canada.

And don't get me wrong, that's beautiful, but that's also not an everyday event. Because the weather up there can get brutal, and like my Dad said, "like its own country."

Because yesterday, on the ground, the weather was mostly sunny and in the 40s. But 6,288 feet up at the Mount Washington Observatory, the winds were so tornado-like (and this is coming from a dude that lived in Tornado Alley in Tulsa for a couple years), that grown human beings could barely stand.

And the proof is in the video that WMTW photographer Johanna Seal posted on her Twitter page yesterday.