If you're living in the Northeast
and you hear the wind
whipping around outside,
you may think you live
in one of the coldest spots in the storm.
And it may be incredibly cold,
but it is not Mount
Washington in New Hampshire, cold.
That's the highest peak in the Northeast.
Earlier, I spoke to someone
who is there right
now, right at the peak,
Frances Terraza,
which is a weather observer and education
specialist
at Mount Washington Observatory.
Frances, thank you so much
for doing this.
Can you just talk a little bit
about where you are right now
and what it's like outside
where you are right now?
Absolutely.
So, of course,
I'm on the summit of Mount Washington.
And outside,
briefly, our current condition
here that focuses.
We've got wind
right around 90 miles per hour.
We've had a 130 mile
per hour wind gusts
in the last 9 minutes.
It's really the cool story.
There is the wind chill.
106 degrees below zero. What
Yes.
Wow.
So obviously, you
are not going outside
Are we still are.
However, we're we're nice
and bundled up here on the summit.
When we do.
We do have to do our hourly observations,
of course.
24, seven,
three 65 up here on the summit.
It's a dumb question to ask.
What does it feel like to be in -106
degrees Fahrenheit?
But like, what does it feel like?
So I did have a tiny sliver of my wrist
exposed today,
and it felt like a continuous big thing
or like a continuous sort of
severe sunburn,
just reminding you, like, hey,
it exposed.
I shouldn't be.
Do you know what?
Like, how quickly
would you get frostbite
if you were very exposed out there
in under a minute and these could.
Wow,
that's incredible.
Do you ever
are you ever tempted like, sometimes
when I'm in the air, I'm on the air.
Like, in the back of my mind,
I'm tempted to just, like,
say something insane that would,
like, derail my career.
Are you ever tempted to just,
like, run out naked in 100?
-100.
I think we joke about it.
And don't do it
just like I'm not going to do it.
You shouldn't do it either.
So there are there predictions
that you might be beat
all records tonight
for the coldest temperatures
ever recorded, even as cold
as I mean, what would
what would the record be
Sure.
So the observatory is record
goes back to 1932 and that would be
47 degrees below zero.
And so we're very close to that.
We're actually 46 degrees below zero.
I'll switch
back to this story for my city.
We're right here on the summit
the 6288 feet mark.
So we're about a degree away
from doing that.
And then the all time record
is actually recorded
by the US
signal service
back in 1885 that was 50 degrees
below zero.
So yeah, at this rate
we may surpass that as well.
Wow, that's exciting.
I know you're up there
for like a week shift.
How much,
how much longer
do you have in your shift?
About four or five more days.
So pretty much just getting started.
Well,
I mean, if you got to be there
for a week, it's cool
that you're the one there
when the record might be broken.
I understand there was a door
that blew open earlier.
Can you show it to me
and tell us what happened?
Sure.
So I can take you right into our hallway
here on the store.
It gets us into our tower,
which goes another 60 feet
or so above our heads.
And, yeah, the store was the culprit
was another love block
where there's another.
Can you still hear me there?
Yeah, I hear you.
Awesome. Great.
So, yeah,
this door had a steel pin like,
you see here.
It completely snapped off.
We had a wind gusts
around 127 miles per hour
directly from the west.
And so the store flew open,
and it took about three of us
to close it back
so that we could get this new latch.
And for good measure, we have this
by in place pretty much.
The store is the only thing between me
and the
10,100 degrees
below our windchills right now.
So is that ice on the
lock that I'm seeing there?
That is, yes.
I can kind of run my hand
across it for you.
Wow. Just right there.
And I think that's
what contributed to the door
feeling as well.
The metal was just so brittle
and worn out with the cold
that even though
that stairwell must be really cold.
It is.
So, yeah,
it's cold enough to have snow on it
several hours after.
And I want to share this window as well.
But a bit of frost accumulating on there.
Wow. That's really incredible.
So, Frances,
if you could start
I know you're
starting to put on some gear.
You're going to.
So what are you what are you going to do?
You're going to go outside
just to show us how
windy it is, what it's like Yes.
I had left
will be able to see too much,
but I think we'll be able to see the
snow flying around it. Okay.
All right.
A cool
down all around.
I'm going to step out into the Arctic
So right now
it's about 46 degrees below zero.
You said
you're not
Yeah, of course.
It's it's quite dark out, obviously.
So typical. Pretty much, yeah.
I really appreciate it.
So good talking to you.
Yeah, definitely.
And that's the opportunity.
All right. Well, I wish you the best.