USATODAY.com - Mount Washington beats 24-hour snowfall record: "New Hampshire continues to enjoy a warm fall, it's like the dead of winter on Mount Washington.

The summit, the higest peak in the Northeast at 6,288 feet, got 34 inches of snow between Saturday and Monday and beat the record for the most snowfall in 24 hours. Between noon Sunday and noon Monday, 25.5 inches of snow piled up.

'Basically, we've had white-out conditons for the last three days,' weather observer David Balfrey said Tuesday morning.

He said it looks like January or February, with 12-foot drifts and tons of ice that has to be chipped off their instruments. That means climbing weather towers and smashing the ice with crowbars, hammers, 'anything heavy and blunt,' Balfrey said. 'It's not the most scientific end of our job.'

Balfrey said he and his fellow observers are confident they will beat the record for October snowfall. They are only 5 inches short of the record of 39.8 inches set in 1969.

'We are pretty sure we'll get another four or five inches before the end of month,' he said. And he is keeping his fingers crossed for a lot more.

'We definitely enjoy this kind of weather,' he said. 'That's what we sign up for.'
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. "