WS 2025 Lecture 8 - Brian Fitzgerald | Home of the World’s Worst Weather and Winter School Wrap-up
- Leaders
- Ashutosh Kumar, Joe Palin
- Trip date
- Thursday, January 30th, 2025
- Difficulty rating
- Educational :-)
This is the 8th lecture of Winter School 2025!
This lecture will take place on campus in room 1-190 from 7pm to 9pm.
Guest Lecturer: Brian Fitzgerald
Brian Fitzgerald, Director of Education. Brian began his Observatory career as a winter intern on the summit in early 2012 after attending the University of New Hampshire where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Conservation Studies. Following intervening seasons as a Backcountry Hut Naturalist and Education Assistant for the Appalachian Mountain Club, Brian returned to the Observatory as a full-time Observer and Educational Specialist on the summit where he performed daily weather observations and led weather station tours, distance learning programs and media interviews.
After nearly three winters on the summit, Brian headed south to work as the Chief Weather Observer at Blue Hill Observatory and Science Center just south of Boston while going to graduate school at night. In early 2016, Brian graduated from Boston University with a Master’s of Education with a focus in Science Education, and moved back to the Mount Washington Valley to serve as Mount Washington Observatory’s Director of Education. When Brian’s not administering and teaching educational programs, you can find him hiking, mountaineering, trail running, skiing or staring at the clouds. He currently resides in North Conway along with his wife, Stephanie, and their sons Cameron and Finlay.
Talk description
In the northeastern United States, a unique combination of topography, geography, and geology creates one of the world’s most extreme environments – the summit of Mount Washington. Nowhere else on Earth experiences such consistent sub-zero temperatures, hurricane-force winds, freezing fog, and driving snow. These extreme conditions have earned Mount Washington the title, “Home of the World’s Worst Weather”.
This program, a fan favorite, provides a broad perspective from the Observatory’s founding in 1932 to current day operations. Packed with stunning visuals and breath-taking video, our educators will help you understand how this small, but deadly mountain has gained the reputation as the “Home of the World’s Worst Weather.”
Signup
- Algorithm
- first-come, first-serve
- Maximum participants
- 150
- Signups opened at
- Jan. 20, 2025, 8 a.m.
- Signups closed at
- Jan. 30, 2025, 7 p.m.