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by state law. This

1:09

is But Why, a podcast for curious

1:11

kids from Vermont Public. I'm Jane Lindholm.

1:13

On this show, we take questions from

1:15

curious kids just like you, and we

1:17

find answers. Hi But Why, my name

1:19

is Emmy, I'm 10 years old, and

1:21

I live in Yerevan, Armenia. My

1:24

question is, why is snow

1:26

fluffy, soft, white,

1:29

and why is it shiny? Okay,

1:32

bye! I love your show! I

1:35

have lived all over the world, but

1:37

something I once took for granted was

1:39

just how beautiful Vermont looks when it

1:41

snows. We were lucky to

1:43

get some snow here recently, and it was

1:45

breathtaking. The fallen snow glittered like

1:48

a blanket of crystals on the ground.

1:50

The wind, while it was snowing, blew

1:52

the snowflakes into the trees, but only

1:54

on one side. So after the snowstorm,

1:56

each tree trunk looked like it was split down

1:58

the middle. brown on one side

2:00

and white on the other. Living

2:03

here during my childhood and again as

2:05

an adult, I have developed an appreciation

2:07

for snow, but maybe

2:09

still not quite as much

2:11

appreciation as our guests today

2:13

have. Later in the episode

2:16

we're going to hear from one of the

2:18

meteorologists, people who study and predict the weather,

2:20

who spend the winter at the top of

2:22

Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Mount

2:24

Washington is the highest mountain in

2:26

the northeastern United States and it's

2:28

famous for its extreme weather conditions.

2:31

But first we're going to tackle a bunch

2:33

of your questions about winter weather with

2:35

Seth Linden. Seth works for

2:38

the National Center for Atmospheric Research and

2:40

he's based in Boulder, Colorado, another place

2:42

that gets a lot of snow. Definitely

2:45

a self-proclaimed weather nerd and I am a

2:47

lover of snow. Seth's job includes

2:49

creating weather models that allows computers

2:51

to make predictions of what the

2:54

weather will be based on the

2:56

conditions we're seeing in the atmosphere.

2:58

So a forecast model is actually a

3:00

combination of mathematical equations at its base,

3:03

basically physics related equations, and so when

3:05

you put in the different equations that

3:07

govern the atmosphere you can actually model

3:09

what's going to happen in the atmosphere

3:11

in terms of when the storms are

3:13

going to come. So it takes the

3:15

current conditions and it applies mathematical

3:17

equations and then it can basically predict the

3:19

weather into the future. Right, because for anybody

3:21

who needs to know what they're going to

3:23

wear tomorrow it's not helpful to say, hey

3:25

it snowed a foot yesterday, everybody can tell

3:27

that. It's you need to be able to tell

3:30

people, hey this is what we think is

3:32

going to happen where you live or where

3:34

you work and here's what you need to

3:36

do to get prepared. So having

3:38

a forecast or a prediction is

3:40

really important but it's also

3:42

kind of hard because you don't know

3:44

what's going to happen in the future

3:47

exactly. So your models are able to

3:49

help understand what is likely to

3:51

happen given weather patterns and

3:53

conditions, right? Correct, exactly. It's to predict

3:55

the future so it's hard and the weather

3:58

is a chaotic system so... you

4:00

basically use a bunch of equations that can

4:02

govern how the weather works and

4:05

still get a pretty reasonable answer as to what's

4:07

going to happen tomorrow and the next day. And of course, the farther you

4:09

go out in time, because there's a chaos in

4:11

the system, the less accurate the forecast can be.

4:13

So to be a meteorologist, do you have to

4:15

be good at math or do you just have to

4:18

be good at knowing how to be a computer programmer

4:20

and let the computer do the math? No,

4:22

actually math is the basis for being a

4:24

meteorologist. All atmospheric science

4:27

is really based in physics, which

4:29

is really based on math, mathematical

4:31

equations. You need a good background in math

4:33

and then also earth sciences and understanding

4:35

of things that govern the

4:37

atmosphere like gravity and how the earth

4:39

spins around and creates forces on this

4:42

atmosphere that sits above the ground. Math

4:44

and physics is the basis for atmospheric science.

4:47

At this time of year in the

4:49

northern hemisphere, we are all experiencing winter.

4:51

And depending on where you live, winter

4:53

might be warm or cold. But

4:56

for a lot of people, winter

4:58

weather in their heads means snow. And

5:00

we have a lot of snow questions

5:02

from kids. My name

5:05

is C. Lix. I'm

5:07

five and a half years old. I

5:11

live in Limerick

5:14

Island. How is

5:16

snow made? My name

5:18

is Xavier. I live in Sydney, Australia.

5:21

I'm 10 years old. And my question

5:23

is, how is snow made

5:25

and why does it fall from the

5:27

clouds? Hi, my name is Graydon. I'm

5:30

four and I live

5:33

in Victoria, Canada. And

5:35

I want to know how is

5:37

snow made? I

5:40

am Hank. I'm five and

5:42

a half years old. I

5:44

live in Greenup Bay, California.

5:47

And my question is, what

5:50

is snow

5:54

made out of? What

5:56

snow basically is, is it's just water

5:58

vapor that freezes into ice? crystals

6:00

in the atmosphere when the temperature is

6:03

below freezing. And so typically in terms

6:05

of how snow is made, what happens

6:07

is that you usually have little ice

6:09

crystals that start to form around typically

6:11

a little particulate matter. Like a piece of

6:14

dust or a piece of pollen. Right, piece of

6:16

dust, piece of pollen, piece of smoke, very invisible.

6:18

But the bottom line is you need two factors.

6:20

You need cold temps near or below freezing. It

6:22

doesn't have to be right at freezing but below.

6:24

And then you need sufficient water vapor. And then

6:26

the ice crystals basically start to form on a

6:29

particle and then other ice crystals start to form

6:31

on those ice crystals and the ice crystals grow

6:33

into actual flakes that become heavy enough the flakes

6:35

will fall through the clouds and hit the ground

6:37

of snow. And so you need those

6:39

conditions. You need some humidity, some

6:42

you know some moisture in the atmosphere and

6:44

you need it to be cold up there.

6:46

So it's not like rain that falls through

6:48

the sky and then just becomes snow at

6:50

the very end right before it hits the

6:52

ground. It's formed as snow up in the

6:54

clouds. Right, typically even

6:56

when we have rain a lot of times in the upper parts

6:58

of the atmosphere what's going to happen because it's below freezing is

7:01

as you get you know snowflake formation

7:03

again by ice crystals started building upon

7:05

each other and then bumping into

7:07

other ice crystals that didn't form flakes and it

7:09

starts to fall through. Now if the atmosphere warms

7:11

up as you get near the ground the

7:14

snowflakes eventually melt and then fall into rain.

7:17

Of course there's situations where you

7:19

can have rain falling near the ground but

7:22

then as cold air comes in via cold

7:24

front then that starts to change the rain

7:26

near the surface back to snow because you

7:28

have freezing temperatures and the water

7:30

starts to change back into ice crystals. So it's

7:33

not uncommon to have rain snow right you know

7:35

and then back to snow again near the surface.

7:37

Mine is ama and

7:40

I'm five and

7:43

I live in Denmark and

7:45

I want to know why does

7:47

snowflakes look different?

7:51

Hi, I'm Ben. I'm five years

7:53

old. My sister's free. Her name

7:55

is Momo. We're from Buffalo, Pennsylvania.

7:57

Why are some snowflakes bigger than

7:59

the others? Most kids have heard

8:01

that there are no two snowflakes that are

8:03

alike, but there are some common

8:05

kinds of snowflakes. What

8:07

are the different types of snowflakes that

8:09

people might see that are maybe not

8:11

exactly alike but all similar? Yeah,

8:14

yeah. There are basically four basic

8:16

types of snowflakes. You have what

8:19

they call a hexagonal plate that's in the

8:21

shape of a hexagon. You have little needles

8:23

and you have ones that look like columns,

8:25

like three-dimensional needles and then the one that

8:27

are most common that people really associate with

8:30

flakes are called dendrites. Those are like plates

8:32

that have branches on them just from attracting

8:34

ice crystals in a certain way and it's

8:36

very temperature dependent. That's the key. Temperature

8:39

in the layer that the snowflake forms determines whether

8:41

or not it's going to be just a little

8:43

teeny needle or column or if it's really going

8:45

to be like a dendrite which are the big flakes

8:47

that we like to see that create the fluffy snow.

8:50

Hi, my name is Sophie. I

8:52

am eight years old. I live

8:54

in Fairbanks, Alaska. My question is,

8:57

why is snow white? Hi, my

8:59

name is Yona and

9:01

I live in Carlisle, Massachusetts. I'm

9:04

five and a half and I

9:06

want to know why is snow

9:08

white? My name is PJ. I'm

9:11

seven years old. I'm from Westbury, New

9:13

York and my question is, why does

9:16

snow fall and why is snow white?

9:18

My name is Lila. I'm 11 years

9:20

old and I live in Nelson, BC,

9:22

Canada and my question is, why is

9:24

snow white when water is clear? My

9:28

name is Oliver. I'm four and

9:30

a half years old. My

9:32

question is, why is

9:35

snow white even though

9:37

it's made out of water? Because

9:40

it's made out of water and water is

9:42

clear is actually translucent because it's made up

9:45

of ice crystals but basically the ice crystals

9:47

reflect light. And so it's reflecting all of

9:49

the colors in the spectrum and when you

9:51

have something that reflects all of the colors

9:53

to our eye, that looks white and can

9:55

look shiny and kind of

9:58

sparkly. Hi, my name is Kyle. I

10:01

want to

10:03

know why snow is

10:06

sparkly. So it's related to

10:08

sun reflecting off of individual ice crystals

10:10

within the snow. Basically

10:12

light is scattered and it bounces off

10:14

each ice crystal. So as it scatters,

10:16

it's like the prism effect. You see

10:18

this crystal aspect if you had a

10:20

piece of glass and it was refracting

10:22

light. It's scattering the light

10:24

in different directions and it's bending the

10:26

light. And so when it bends the

10:29

light as it scatters it back, it

10:31

produces this sparkly quality. And meteorologists refer

10:33

to this as the snow sparkle.

10:35

So it's just really sun reflecting off of

10:37

individual crystals within the flake. And that's why

10:39

it can look so sparkly. Hi,

10:42

my name is Olivia and I'm

10:44

seven years old and I live

10:46

in Coke and Minnesota. My question

10:48

is, all the raindrops and snow

10:50

flakes clean when they fall from the

10:53

sky? Generally speaking, snow and rain

10:55

are going to start out clean because they are

10:57

formed from water vapor that's up in the clouds.

10:59

But of course, as it falls through the atmosphere,

11:01

it's going to be in areas, let's say near

11:04

cities, where you have pollutions, emissions from cars, we

11:06

have smoke, we have dust. Typically

11:09

I still think it's generally fine eating snow.

11:12

That freshly falls because it's not interacting with anything on the

11:14

ground except for the fact that if you're

11:16

in a really, let's say, polluted area where

11:18

the sky is polluted, then you

11:20

can have polluted snowflakes. Every

11:23

snow is very clean, especially if you're

11:25

in the mountains with no population center. My name

11:27

is Arthur. I'm five years old. My

11:29

question is, what do snowflakes

11:32

do when they hit the ground? That

11:34

all depends on snowflake formation and the retention

11:36

of snow on the ground in terms of

11:38

snow sticking to the ground or what happens

11:41

to it on the ground is basically directly

11:43

related to the temperatures. Temperatures are

11:45

above freezing, say 33, 34 degrees. Those

11:48

snowflakes are going to melt basically on contact. They're

11:50

going to go back to water. But if the

11:52

ground temperatures are below freezing, below 32 degrees or

11:55

zero degrees Celsius, then the snow is basically going

11:57

to lie on the ground. and other snowflakes are

11:59

going to start to pile up on top and

12:01

that's how we get the accumulating snow. You know

12:04

that occurs where you have really fluffy snow in

12:06

the first few hours as you know and you

12:08

can pick it up with your hand and blow

12:10

it away but if you let that snow sit

12:13

for a day after it's fall it turns

12:15

much more into a hard pack snow. It's

12:17

really dependent on the temperatures if

12:19

they're above or below freezing that's the main answer.

12:21

And we have a question from Naomi

12:23

who wants to know you know how can

12:25

it if we're talking about snow forming in

12:27

clouds how can it be both snowing and

12:30

sunny sometimes at the same time? It's

12:32

the same reason why you can have raindrops

12:34

falling with sun shining through. What happens typically

12:36

is is that a clump of clouds moves

12:38

through it produces some snow showers and right

12:40

before after it it's sunny in between where

12:42

it's snowing but you see the sun shining

12:44

through because it's coming through an angle where

12:46

there's a break in the clouds. Anna

12:58

wonders why snowstorms don't have

13:00

thunder but there can be

13:02

thunder during snowstorms. Right

13:05

so the way that thunderstorms work is

13:07

you need very warm air

13:09

near the surface that rapidly rises into

13:11

colder air aloft and we call that

13:13

convection and that's the development of thunderstorms

13:15

that you see during the summer. Thunder

13:17

is just the sound of lightning breaking

13:19

the sound barrier right and lightning forms

13:21

when you have air within the cloud

13:23

moving rapidly upward from the base to

13:25

the upper part of the cloud and

13:27

it separates the charges right and so

13:29

when that happens there's a release of

13:31

lightning and we hear the sound of

13:33

the lightning through thunder. Now you

13:36

can have thunder snow when you have

13:38

an unstable environment let's say with a

13:40

lake effect snow squall because

13:42

of the temperature contrast between let's say the water

13:44

and the atmosphere you do have rapidly rising air

13:47

columns and it can provide enough where

13:49

they're internally within the cloud there's a little bit

13:51

of lightning and that produces thunder snow but it's

13:53

much much less common and especially

13:55

as you get to temperatures below let's say 30

13:57

or 25 degrees you're not

13:59

gonna have have any thunder. It's just too cold to

14:01

get the vertical motion to separate the charges. So

14:04

you generally need it pretty close to freezing

14:07

to get any chance of having thunder snow.

14:09

Exactly and so thunder snow is much more common let's

14:11

say in the fall or the spring. Hi

14:13

my name is Alta. I'm nine years old

14:16

and I live in Azula, Montana and

14:18

my question is why

14:20

is there such thing as snow

14:22

scrolls? We had one

14:24

in a town the other

14:27

day and when we

14:29

were driving home from Boston and

14:31

it was really scary. Maybe you can

14:33

define what a squall is and why we use

14:35

that word sometimes in place of other words like

14:37

snow storm. Basically a snow squall is

14:40

a winter thunderstorm without the thunder but

14:42

those can happen due to a variety

14:44

of reasons like along a cold front

14:46

where the leading edge of the cold

14:48

air is interacting with warmer air out

14:50

ahead of it and so right underneath

14:52

that little small group of clouds you

14:54

can get heavier snow showers and

14:56

then behind that where there's not as many

14:58

clouds you get no snow so it forms

15:00

a very distinct squall line. What separates a

15:03

snow squall from a normal snow storm is

15:05

that it's moving through as if it's like

15:07

a summer thunderstorm but it's producing heavy snow

15:09

and right behind that there's a break in

15:11

the clouds and the difference between like a

15:14

snow squall and a major snow storm is

15:16

that a major snowstorm you have a wide

15:19

area of clouds producing snow continuously and

15:21

there's no breaks. So if there's no

15:23

breaks in the snow you're not going

15:25

to typically see much of a snow squall. I didn't

15:28

realize squall had a such a

15:30

specific definition. Does flurry have an

15:32

equally specific definition? Oh yeah

15:34

every type of um adjective for snow

15:36

and descriptions of snow mean something entirely

15:39

different. So obviously flurries we use to

15:41

describe when it's very light snow versus

15:43

heavy snow and there's groppel and there's

15:45

there's lots of different types of snow.

15:48

Groppel is kind of like snow popcorn. It

15:50

just looks like light little balls of snow. Groppel

15:53

is kind of a cool little thing too. Given

15:55

everything that you Seth have just told us I

15:57

bet a lot of kids who are listening can

16:00

now understand and guess the

16:02

answer or know the answer

16:04

to Liam's question. I am

16:07

six and three-quarters years old

16:10

and I live in the Philippines. My question

16:12

is, why isn't there snow in tropical

16:15

places? Why

16:17

isn't there snow in tropical

16:19

places? And you've been

16:21

telling us about the temperature conditions needed

16:23

for snow to form and so the

16:26

snow can't form in places where it's

16:28

very very warm all the time, right?

16:30

Yeah, it all has to do with temperature

16:33

and so but it's a misnomer,

16:35

right, that you can't have snow in tropical regions.

16:37

It just has to do with at what

16:39

level in the atmosphere are you going to hit the

16:42

freezing temperatures. Take for

16:44

instance areas in you know

16:46

South America, Peru, Ecuador, they

16:48

sit near the equator, right? The equator itself, right,

16:50

is generally very hot. That's what we call the

16:53

tropics. But of course we know

16:55

there's parts of the world like in Peru where

16:57

the mountains themselves go up to 20,000 feet. So

17:00

all the cities that are at lower elevations you know near

17:02

the sea level are going

17:04

to always be too warm for snow. But

17:07

as you go up the mountain where it

17:09

is cold enough, where the atmosphere itself is

17:12

below freezing and then you get ice crystal

17:14

formation in snow. So but in

17:16

areas you know that are lower down in the

17:18

tropics it's just the air column

17:20

itself even above the ground is just way

17:22

too warm for snow to form. My

17:25

name is April and I am

17:27

16 years old. I

17:29

live in Pennsylvania and

17:32

my question is,

17:37

are there other reasons other than just

17:39

temperature why it might not snow

17:41

very much somewhere? So in areas

17:44

that don't get snow even if they are

17:46

below freezing it's typically because you have a

17:48

lack of moisture and storms. So that has

17:50

a lot to do with where

17:52

is the jet stream which brings in our

17:54

weather in relationship to you know the mountains

17:56

or valleys because of the

17:58

mountains and the the downward moving

18:00

air, remember you need upward moving air to

18:03

produce rain and snow. If you

18:05

have a lot of downward moving air, let's say in

18:07

a mountain valley or a valley or some area that's

18:09

adjacent to the mountains, it basically kills all the precip

18:12

and there's no moisture left for

18:14

precip to form. So there are definitely areas of

18:16

the world that are cold enough that just never

18:18

get snow because all of the moisture is gone.

18:20

So remember for snow you need temps

18:22

below freezing and you need sufficient moisture in the

18:24

atmosphere. If the moisture isn't there, you'll never

18:26

get snow formation. Hi,

18:29

my name is Dane. I'm almost

18:32

seven. I'm living in

18:34

Calavasas, California and I want to

18:36

know why there's no snow singing

18:38

over in the mountains. Dane

18:41

wants to know why it's so snowy

18:43

in mountains specifically and some of the

18:45

snowiest places on earth are mountains.

18:47

The reason being is that

18:49

mountains force the air to

18:52

rise. So for all precipitation

18:54

and even cloud formation, the

18:56

basic concept is you need air to

18:58

rise. You need a parcel of

19:01

air that's near the surface that's forced to

19:03

move upward because as air moves

19:06

upward what happens in that column

19:08

of air is it cools down and

19:11

water vapor begins to condense out of the

19:13

atmosphere from an invisible phase

19:15

to droplets. So mountains themselves,

19:18

we have the wind

19:20

blowing against the mountains. It

19:22

hits the mountains, let's say, you know in

19:25

Colorado or across the US we have the

19:27

general jet stream flowing from west to east, right?

19:29

So the air will move in

19:32

and it'll hit the mountains, let's say in

19:34

Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, and it's forced

19:36

to quickly rise and so as it rises

19:38

it cools and the moisture condenses out of

19:41

the atmosphere. So the main thing is that

19:43

mountains force the air to rise and rising

19:45

air is what you need to form clouds,

19:47

rain, and snow. One other question

19:49

from kids that we got that is

19:52

not really your area of expertise necessarily

19:54

but I suspect you know the answer

19:56

is why does salt melt snow? My

19:59

name is Jamie. I'm from

20:01

Silverdale, Washington. Hi, my name

20:03

is Rish and I am from

20:05

Katy, Texas. And my question is, why

20:07

does salt melt snow and ice? Hi,

20:10

my name is Molly. I'm seven years

20:12

old. I live in Pelham, New York.

20:14

And my question is, why

20:16

do we salt our roads when it's snowy

20:18

and how does it work? The

20:21

reason that we salt roads or put chemical down on

20:24

the road is that if it's snowing and it's below

20:26

freezing, the snow's not going to melt. And

20:28

it's going to get compacted and form ice

20:30

on the roads. And we know that ice

20:33

on the roads cause cars to slip. Now,

20:35

salt, for instance, it lowers the freezing temperature

20:37

of water. And so when

20:39

you put salt onto snow, it's going

20:41

to cause those ice crystals to go

20:43

back into a water phase without it

20:45

freezing. Basically, the salt changes the ice

20:47

back to water. And then you reduce

20:49

the slippage from cars

20:51

driving on the road. Do you ever get tired

20:53

of having to pay attention to the weather?

20:55

Or is it always fascinating to

20:57

you? To me, it's endlessly fascinating.

21:00

And it's a great question for me because

21:02

aside from working in NCAR, I have a

21:04

big weather report for Colorado that's online on

21:06

Facebook called Cess Weather Report. And

21:08

it's a passion project. It's just based

21:10

on forecasting. And I,

21:13

as a meteorologist, that's why I got

21:15

in to work for NCAR was

21:17

because of snow. I would watch the Weather Channel to see when it

21:19

was going to snow at the ski area. And

21:22

the ability to forecast snow in

21:25

Colorado, for instance, where

21:27

there's a lot of mountains and it's complicated, is

21:29

treasured. People really want to know, hey, how much

21:31

is it going to snow at Muscaria and wind?

21:34

Timing in the mountains. And every

21:36

storm is unique and different. And because every storm

21:38

is unique and different, you constantly have to look

21:41

at all the situations. What's the wind

21:43

direction relative to the terrain? Where's the

21:45

storm coming from? So I don't

21:47

ever get sick of looking at the weather. A

21:50

few minutes ago, Seth explained why mountains tend

21:52

to have a lot of snow, more than

21:54

the amount we have down lower or closer

21:56

to sea level. Next, we're going

21:58

to learn what it's like to live. on the

22:00

top of a very cold mountain during the

22:02

winter. In fact, this mountain

22:04

gets as cold as Mars. This

22:09

is, But Why, a podcast for curious

22:12

kids from Vermont Public. I'm

22:14

Jane Lindholm, and today we've been learning all

22:16

about snow and how it's formed. Let's

22:19

take our new knowledge with us as

22:21

we journey to the top of a

22:23

very, very cold mountain and learn what

22:25

it's like to be a meteorologist living

22:27

in severe weather conditions. Mount

22:30

Washington in New Hampshire is famous for having

22:32

some of the world's worst weather. Although,

22:35

I guess I shouldn't call it worst weather. That's

22:37

all relative. Some people might think

22:39

it's the best weather, including our next

22:41

guest. But let's see what you think.

22:44

Winds up at the summit, the top, get up to 100

22:46

miles per hour or more. During

22:49

the winter months, the wind combined with the cold

22:51

makes it as chilly as Mars. And

22:54

Mount Washington is at the junction where

22:56

three storm systems collide, creating these severe

22:58

weather conditions. So average snowfall up there

23:01

is more than 23 feet. One

23:04

year, it even got twice that. You

23:06

might think no one would want to spend the winter

23:08

up there, given all that I just told you. But

23:11

in fact, there's a team of meteorologists

23:13

and interns who keep track of all

23:15

the weather data at an observatory. We

23:18

asked one of the team members there this winter to tell

23:20

us a little bit about what it's like. Alex

23:23

Branton is both an educator

23:25

and a meteorologist. The Mount

23:27

Washington Observatory is a very

23:29

unique laboratory in the clouds.

23:32

We get to be inside of the thing that

23:34

we're researching, the thing that we're studying, which is

23:36

the weather. So not only

23:38

do we get to forecast the weather

23:40

and research the weather, but we actually

23:42

get to experience visually and

23:45

we get to feel the weather that

23:48

we're observing that we're studying. So that's

23:50

really special and it gives us just

23:52

a really unique opportunity. The

23:55

summit in Mount Washington is at an elevation of 6,288 feet.

23:59

So, While it is the tallest mountain in the

24:02

Northeast, it's not the tallest

24:04

mountain in the country, let alone the

24:06

world. It's actually a very small mountain.

24:09

But Mount Washington experience is much

24:11

more extreme weather. That

24:13

is one of the biggest reasons as

24:15

to why we have a research center

24:17

up here to study the weather. It's

24:20

also unique to have human weather observers

24:22

on the summit of Mount Washington. Most

24:24

weather stations across the world are

24:27

automated, meaning they have instruments that

24:29

work by themselves automatically

24:32

reporting the weather. That doesn't

24:34

work though on Mount Washington because the weather

24:36

conditions are so extreme that instruments would not

24:38

be able to withstand the conditions outside if

24:40

we were to just leave them alone. So

24:43

that's why Mount Washington Observatory continues

24:45

to have human observers and meteorologists

24:48

on the summit actually

24:50

manually recording the weather using

24:52

manual instruments and forecasting the

24:54

weather. It may be extreme,

24:56

but that's actually one of the reasons that

24:58

our team here at the Mount

25:00

Washington Observatory is that our team here at

25:03

the Mount Washington Observatory is actually getting to

25:05

experience the weather that I'm forecasting for. Usually

25:08

when you're a meteorologist, you forecast

25:11

for a large region of different places that

25:15

can have different weather that you may not get

25:18

to experience or actually

25:20

be able to experience. So that's a really

25:22

nice thing to do. And I think that's a really nice

25:24

thing to do. That you may not

25:27

get to experience or actually visually see.

25:29

At the Mount Washington Observatory, we can

25:32

see the storm systems coming across the

25:34

horizon. And then once they

25:36

arrive, we're inside the cloud that's producing

25:38

the snow, the rain, the

25:40

thunderstorm, whatever it might be. And

25:43

that's a really great

25:45

opportunity to have. As a meteorologist,

25:47

we like extreme weather. We like

25:50

to experience the bad weather. So

25:53

working at Mount Washington is kind of like

25:55

storm chasing in a sense, except we don't

25:57

have to do any actual chasing. The storm...

26:00

comes to us. So we just kind

26:02

of sit here and wait, which usually

26:04

it doesn't take that long for a

26:06

storm system to come through New England.

26:08

For meteorologists on Mount Washington, going outside

26:10

in winter requires a lot of preparation.

26:13

Like, it may take a lot of preparation if you

26:16

live in a snowy place to go out for recess

26:18

or playtime, but imagine having to put on

26:20

up to 10 different pieces of

26:22

winter clothing and protective gear and

26:24

having no skin exposed just

26:27

to go outside for maybe five minutes.

26:30

I always make sure that I have on

26:32

a few layers because layering is key

26:34

in the cold weather, especially in the

26:36

high winds. So I'm always

26:38

wearing a wool base wear, pants

26:41

and shirt, and then

26:43

if it's really cold outside,

26:46

I'll wear a mid-wear, like

26:48

fleece sweatpants and a puffy

26:50

jacket and then an

26:52

outer shell. So that

26:55

would be snow pants and

26:57

a wind-proof insulated coat. In

27:00

addition to all of that clothing, I'm

27:02

also wearing a balaclava, which is something

27:04

that goes over your head and it

27:06

covers your neck and your chin and

27:09

your forehead. And then if it's

27:11

really, really cold, I'll put on a hat over

27:14

that balaclava. And

27:16

then it's really important to cover your eyes

27:18

and those conditions. It's also

27:20

important to wear ski goggles, especially

27:23

when the winds are really high, because

27:25

in those types of conditions, the

27:28

wind chills get very, very low.

27:31

So wind chill is a metric

27:33

that we use to describe the

27:35

heat loss from your skin based

27:37

on the temperature outside and

27:40

the wind. It's similar to the

27:42

phenomenon you might experience whenever it's a

27:44

warm summer day and you jump into

27:46

a swimming pool and then

27:48

you're out of the swimming pool, you feel really

27:50

cold. It's because you've gotten out of

27:52

that water, your skin is wet, and

27:54

now all of a sudden you have wind blowing

27:56

across your skin and you then feel colder. So

27:59

that's what wind chill is. It accelerates

28:01

the heat loss from your skin. So

28:03

you need cold temperatures and high winds

28:05

in order for those wind chills to

28:08

become at a dangerous level. So

28:10

for example, in February of 2022,

28:14

we had a historic cold weather event

28:16

on the summit of Mount Washington where

28:19

we matched our record lowest

28:21

temperature ever recorded on the

28:23

summit, an observatory history of 47

28:25

degrees below zero

28:28

and our winds at the time were 121 miles per hour. So

28:30

that put wind chill values at 110 degrees

28:37

below zero, so negative 110

28:39

degrees. So in those types of

28:41

conditions, we have to actually look in a mirror before

28:43

we go outside to make sure we don't

28:46

have any skin exposed and that's

28:48

where the ski goggles come in. That

28:50

area right around where your ski goggles

28:52

cover your eyes, where they

28:54

meet the balaclava that you're wearing, those are

28:56

the most frequently missed spots. So that's why

28:59

the mirror is important so we can look

29:01

to make sure we have no exposed skin.

29:03

And we're never going out for more than

29:05

about 10 minutes or so at a time

29:08

unless it's by choice. Alex and her colleagues

29:10

don't live at the summit all the time.

29:12

They take shifts up there for several days

29:14

and then they can go back down to

29:16

civilization when they're not working. But

29:18

there is one creature who lives at

29:21

the observatory year round. So

29:23

Nimbus is our resident summit cat.

29:25

So he is the only full-time

29:27

resident on Mount Washington. The

29:30

only time he ever leaves the

29:32

summit is to go to his

29:34

annual vet appointment once a year.

29:36

Nimbus's role at the Mount Washington

29:38

Observatory is to basically be a

29:41

companion to the weather observers. They

29:43

can get kind of lonely up here, especially

29:46

in the winter when we are in the

29:48

fog and you can't really see

29:50

outside. It's dark and maybe we're

29:52

the only people up on our shifts at a

29:54

time. So Nimbus is really

29:57

helpful in keeping us company and

29:59

providing entertainment. because he has a very

30:01

funny cat. His favorite activity

30:03

is probably eating food and if

30:05

he's not eating food, begging for

30:08

food. So if you want to

30:10

be Nimbus' best friend, you just have to give him

30:12

a treat and he'll love you forever. We asked

30:15

Alex why she wanted to become a

30:17

meteorologist and if she always saw herself

30:19

studying severe weather. From a

30:21

young age, I was just always

30:23

interested in meteorology. I'm actually originally

30:26

from Pensacola, Florida. So being from

30:28

that area of

30:30

the country, I got to experience a lot

30:32

of extreme weather in a different sense from

30:35

Mount Washington. I got

30:37

to experience hurricanes, most notably

30:39

Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Katrina.

30:42

I do remember getting two snow days

30:44

from school in

30:46

high school and that was because we had sweet

30:49

and freezing rain, no actual snow,

30:51

but we did experience some winter weather a

30:53

couple of times. I was just

30:55

always captivated by the weather. Whenever I

30:57

was in middle school and I started

30:59

thinking about what I wanted to do

31:01

when I grew up, my mom just

31:03

randomly said, you should just be a

31:05

meteorologist. You like the weather. And I

31:07

said, you know what mom, you're probably

31:10

right. I should probably do that. I

31:12

remember a hurricane hunter coming to visit

31:14

my class. So a hurricane

31:16

hunter is someone who flies airplanes into

31:18

a hurricane in order to collect data

31:20

about them so that we can

31:22

better forecast where they're going, how much they're

31:24

going to strengthen and do research with that

31:27

data. So a hurricane hunter

31:29

came and visited my class and that's when I realized

31:31

that I could have a career

31:33

in meteorology that wasn't associated with

31:35

broadcasting only, being a weather person

31:39

on TV. There are lots of ways

31:41

to be involved in weather science with

31:43

or without being a TV meteorologist, as

31:45

both Alex and Seth have demonstrated. Do you

31:48

like learning about the weather? Well Seth told

31:51

us there are lots of ways kids like you

31:53

can learn more and even contribute to science. There

31:55

are plenty of books about weather science, so see

31:57

if your school library has any you could check.

32:01

Some people are able to buy weather

32:03

stations for their home that can give

32:05

them digital readouts of things like temperature,

32:07

humidity, and barometric pressure. That might

32:09

be possible for you. And even

32:11

if not, you can make things like

32:13

rain gauges or snow gauges to measure

32:15

how much precipitation you get where you

32:18

live. See if there

32:20

are any citizen science projects near you

32:22

that collect data about rain and

32:24

snow from weather observers, and

32:26

maybe you can be one. Thanks

32:29

to Seth Linden at the National Center

32:31

for Atmospheric Research and Alexandra Branton at

32:33

the Mount Washington Observatory for helping us

32:36

learn more about snow today. Now

32:38

if you have a question about anything, have

32:40

an adult help you record yourself asking it.

32:43

You can have your adult do it on

32:45

a smartphone using a voice recorder and voice

32:47

memo app. We want to hear your

32:49

first name, where you live, and how old

32:51

you are. And try to be in

32:53

a quiet place without too much background noise. Unless

32:55

the background noise is important to your question.

32:59

Then your adult can email the

33:01

file to questions at butwhykids.org. Or

33:04

you can submit your question directly on

33:06

our website, butwhykids.org. But

33:09

Why is produced at Vermont Public and distributed

33:11

by PRX. Our team includes

33:13

Melody Baudette, Kiana Haskin, and me, Jane

33:15

Lindholm. Special thanks this week

33:18

to David Littlefield. Our theme

33:20

music is by Luke Reynolds. We'll be back in

33:22

two weeks with an all-new episode. Until

33:24

then, stay curious.