Category Archives: Weather phenomena

In the fall, the Pemigewasset River saw very significant flooding, and some of campus was even under water! The river eventually froze but in the spring the ice melted and we saw some pretty significant ice jams along the river, but nothing too dangerous. When I hiked to Secret Beach on Easter, the ice was piled very high along the river bank. We had to climb down a wall of ice to make it to the beach and once we did, the water was freezing. With recent high temperatures, all of the ice from Easter has melted. This left little to no beach area and very cold water, but my friends and I still went to soak up some sun. It always amazes me how fast ice can melt. Here is a picture of Secret Beach on Easter vs this past week:

For flood outlooks for the Pemi, click here.

Posted by krb1038 in Weather phenomena

Mild temperatures have finally been sticking around here at Plymouth. We saw temperatures break 70 last week, and today we reached a high of 68. I love the sun but my favorite part about the nice weather was the cumulus clouds associated with it. Cumulus clouds are my favorite type of cloud. They are the bright, puffy, white clouds we usually see when it’s nice out. Their lifted condensation level, the height at which an air parcel becomes saturated, is always clearly visible, which allows them to have an aesthetically pleasing flat bottom. Other clouds that are often associated with good weather are cirrus clouds, cirrostratus clouds, and altocumulus clouds. Cirrus clouds are the wispy clouds we see really high in the sky, often associated with sunsets. Cirrostratus clouds are also really high up. They are very thin and can often produce optical illusions such as sun halos and rainbow clouds due to their ice crystals. Altocumulus clouds are mid-level clouds that look similar to regular cumulus clouds, but are less puffy and form in groups.

Aside from fair weather, the clouds associated with poor weather are mainly stratus and cumulonimbus clouds. Stratus clouds are low, gray clouds that make everything look dreary and wet. The cumulonimbus cloud is the thunderstorm cloud. Cumulonimbus clouds can grow to be huge in both width and height. They can grow up to 10 km high and have a flat top, due to the high winds that are high up in the atmosphere. These can produce heavy rain, snow, hail, lightning, and even tornadoes. Hopefully here at Plymouth we can stick to only the fair weather clouds! Although I do love a good thunderstorm.

To learn more about the cloud types and my source, click here: https://scied.ucar.edu/webweather/clouds/cloud-types

Here is a photo of today’s cumulus clouds on campus:

Posted by krb1038 in Weather phenomena