Yeah, I heard about that. Bummer for Mt. Washington.
But I had always been under the impression that the 231 mph record was the highest non-thunderstorm wind speed in the world, and was surprised when I heard that the 253 mph speed was considered to have broken the 231 mph speed record, because the 253 mph wind speed was recorded in a typhoon (hurricane), which I thought was in a different category of wind speed records than the non-storm wind record at Mt. Washington. Apparently, I was mistaken. Regardless, the 231 mph speed was, in fact, a non-storm wind speed that was set up by a freak juxtaposition of very strong and geographically close High and Low pressure systems in just the right way to funnel the air over the Mt. Washington area at a ridiculously high rate of speed. If someone is ever successful at measuring the wind speed inside an F5 or F6 tornado in a way that could be validated for purposes of records, then no doubt even the 253 mph wind record will be broken some day. I've been a very long-time afficianado of severe weather (esp. tornados and weather extremes/records); so this subject is very interesting to me.
CaT
