They are used to wicked winds, and Monday was another classic weather day atop Mount Washington.
"It's pretty crazy out," Mount Washington Weather Observer/Education Specialist Rebecca Scholand said about the conditions. "We had a peak wind gust of 129 mph wind gust around 8 a.m. Monday morning."
The Mount Washington Observatory sits atop the highest mountain peak in the Northeastern United States and is famous for dangerously erratic weather.
The wind gust doesn't come close to reaching the all-time record set at the summit of the 6,288 foot mountain peak.
During a wild April storm in 1934, a wind gust of 231 miles per hour (372 kilometers per hour) pushed across the summit of Mount Washington. This wind speed still stands as the all-time surface wind speed observed by man record.
Most of the doors open inwards, to help the staff get the doors open. "Just the pressure difference between the outside of the building and the inside of the building when the wind is this strong is incredible."
Scholand says it is far more difficult to walk outside the observatory on a day like this, with extremely powerful gusts, versus a day when sustained winds are very strong. "You can just lean into it and go for it. When they start to get very gusty like they are today, its very difficult, because your hit by a 40 mph wind, and then a gust over a 100 mph."
The observers at the summit are not worried about any damage outside the building. "The only real damage comes is if too much ice accumulates onto things," Scholand said.