If you think it's cold outside where you are, consider the top of New Hampshire's Mount Washington, described as the "home of the world's worst weather."
At the 6,200-foot summit, the mountain's weather observatory recorded a record low temperature for Dec. 28.
"Early this morning we dropped to about 34 below (zero), which was a new daily record for the date, and then we gusted to 116 mph," says Tom Padham, a weather observer based there. "Wind chill values dropped to as low as 89 below (zero). Basically, this is about as cold as I've seen in my five years up here."
A small staff has been gathering weather data at the site and using it for forecasting for the past 85 years. Padham says the observatory itself is built like a fortress to protect against what's often described as the world's worst weather.
"It is built to withstand 300-mile-an-hour winds," Padham says. "It has three-foot-concrete walls and actually the windows that are facing northwest here, really into the brunt of those winds, are bullet-proof glass. So, basically chunks of ice could be flying around at 100-miles an hour that would be blowing out most normal windows pretty quickly."
Padham and his colleagues spend a week at a time at the observatory. They're transported up and down by a snowcat that makes its way up the eight-mile road very carefully, especially in whiteout conditions.
This story was originally published Dec. 28, 2017 at 2:22 p.m. ET.
