On April 12, 1934, winds at the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire blew at an astounding speed of 231 miles per hour. In honor of that, April 12 is called Big Wind Day.
Another way of writing miles per hour is to simply use the first letter of each word: mph.
To get an idea of how fast 231 mph is, lets talk about humans, cars, and hurricanes.
In 2009, a man named Usain Bolt ran a 100-meter sprint in 9.58 seconds, making him the fastest human. His speed in the race was a little over 23 miles per hour.
The speed limit for cars around town is about that same speed: 25 miles per hour. In some places, like interstate highways, the speed limit is much higher: 65 or 70 mph. And that’s about as fast as most of us will ever go on land.
Winds, especially in hurricanes, can travel faster than cars. There is a scale — the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale — that puts hurricanes into five groups, depending on wind speed.
Category 1 is the lowest, with sustained winds blowing at 74 to 95 mph. Each Category moving up the scale has stronger winds.
Category 5, the highest, has wind speeds of 157 mph or higher. A Category 5 hurricane can do a lot of damage.
The winds at the top of Mt. Washington in 1934 were faster than those of the deadliest hurricane. Fortunately, being up on top of a mountain, there was no damage and no one was hurt.
Mt. Washington (which, by the way, is named in honor of George Washington) is not as high as many other mountains, but it can have weather that is just as wild.
Because Mt. Washington is easier to climb than many taller mountains and because it has wild weather (cold, heavy snowfall, thick fog, ice, and strong winds), some scientists back in 1870 went up it to observe weather conditions. They hoped to learn more about weather and improve weather forecasting.
The United States Signal Service built a weather station on top of the mountain. It was one of the first mountain-top observatories in the world.
In 1932, some volunteers built the Mount Washington Observatory, so that scientists would have a safe, well-equipped place to study the weather.
It was two years later, in 1934, that three observers, Salvatore Pagliuca, Alex McKenzie, and Wendell Stephenson were looking forward to spring. They had spent the winter up on the mountain and in early April hoped that, perhaps, winter was about over.
On the morning of April 11, there were clear skies and a beautiful sunrise. But by afternoon, the sky was full of clouds, and by evening, it became very cold, and thick ice formed.
On the morning of April 12 winds were howling. Sal Pagliuca wrote in the station’s log: “There was no doubt this morning that a super-hurricane, Mt. Washington style, was in full development.”
It was during that storm that the wind reached 231 mph. The wind was measured using an instrument called an anemometer.
Fun Facts
• On April 12, there was heavy ice on the anemometer. Wendell Stephenson went outside with a wooden club to knock the ice off. When he was done, he accidentally dropped the club and the wind carried it away.
• There were cats in the observatory: Ammonuisance, Elmer, Manx, and Oompha, who had five kittens.
• On April 10, 1996, a storm in Barrow Island, Australia had winds of 256 mph, breaking Mt. Washington’s record. In the United States, though, April 12 is still called Big Wind Day.
• The anemometer used in 1934 was a special heated model designed for Mt. Washington. Afterward, it was tested by the National Weather Bureau, which confirmed it was working properly and that 231 mph was an accurate reading.
• To be fair to tornadoes, their winds are probably stronger than hurricane winds, but can’t be accurately measured because anemometers get blown away!
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