Mountain Weather

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    Hikers and climbers from the lowlands often wonder what conditions are like on the mountain compared to the weather down below. I have created a new product to show how the temperatures and winds vary with height near some significant mountains. This product is derived from the twice-daily rawinsonde observations that are taken at sites around the world. In most of the cases, the rawinsonde nearest to the mountain is used. A rawinsonde (short for radio wind sonde) is a helium or hydrogen balloon that is launched to carry weather instruments up through the lower part of the Earth's atmosphere. As these rawinsondes ascend, sometimes as high as 100,000 feet, they collect temperature, wind, humidity, and pressure data and radio it back to the launch site. Several hundred of these rawinsondes are launched twice daily around the world to gather crucial data that are used to initialize the numerical weather prediction models.

     I have written a program which takes the resulting temperature and wind information and plots it in an easy-to-read format for the elevations of interest for each particular mountain. The user should note that this is NOT a forecast -- this is an observation taken through a vertical profile through the atmosphere in the region of the mountain, sometimes up to a hundred or more miles away. Since the atmosphere is stably stratified (resistant to vertical motions) and homogenous across large horizontal distances, the temperatures and winds measured out over the lowlands should be similar to the values on these mountains at the time of the observation. Significant differences may occur when strong storm systems are moving through the region or when downslope windstorms are occurring. Actual data values from the sounding are plotted as closed black circles. Open squares indicate values of the variable that have been interpolated to altitudes of interest on the mountain. Note that no attempt has been made to correct for differences in the horizontal direction, correct for local solar heating or nighttime radiational cooling. Furthermore, no local scaling of the winds has been attempted. As I collect more data, I may try to correct for these factors in the future to try to derive values that are more accurate for the mountain itself.

•     Longs Peak, CO     (El. 14,259 ft)    Most Recent Sounding        Loop over the past 5 days         Archive        Longs Peak Weather Page
•     Pikes Peak, CO       (El. 14,115 ft)    Most Recent Sounding        Loop over the past 5 days         Archive        Pikes Peak Weather Page
•     Mount Rainier, WA (El. 14,411 ft)    Most Recent Sounding                                                                  Archive        Mount Rainier Weather Page

Planned at some point:    Mount McKinley, AK             Mauna Kea, HI           Mount Washington, NH            Mount LeConte, TN

These products are scheduled to update an hour and a half after the sounding synoptic time (00Z, 12Z, and when severe weather threatens the region, 18Z). When Denver is on Daylight Savings Time, these products should be updated by 7:32 PM, 7:32 AM, and occasionally 1:32 PM MDT. Occasionally, the data source that is used is unavailable -- in this case, the product will not update.

Mountain Weather Observatories and Research

•   Operational High Altitude Surface Stations
  • Mount Washington Observatory
    • Current Summit Conditions
    • 24-h weather conditions from KMWN    
    • Auto Road Vertical Temperature Profile (actual measurements!)
    • Photo Journal
  • Mauna Loa Weather Observatory (El. 11,000 ft)        Current Weather

   

•   Research Groups doing High Altitude Climate and Weather Research
  •   University of Massachusetts, Geosciences -- Climate Science Research Center
    • Climate and Snow Research at High Elevations in the Andes of Bolivia    from the University of Massachusetts
    • Kilimanjaro, Tanzania - Kibo (El. 5794 m)        Real-time data not available, monthly climate summaries are posted
  •   University of Fairbanks -- International Arctic Research Center
    • Mount McKinley, Alaska - Denali Pass (approximately 19,000 feet elevation)    Check out this comparison between composite soundings and the station