Mount Everest's weather and height
![The Himalaya Mountain maze from space, yellow arrow points to Mount Everest. Astronauts, orbiting at 5 mi/sec (8 km/sec), have seconds to find it. [NASA]](mount-1.jpg) Q: Mount Everest is so tall it actually touches what? Melissa, Kashmir, India
A: The stratosphere. Mount Everest pokes two-thirds of the way
through the air of the Earth’s atmosphere to the ozone-producing stratosphere —
5.5 miles (8.7 km) up. Stratosphere air contains little water vapor or dust;
only wispy cirrostratus clouds streak the distant sky. Storm clouds, however,
can and certainly do form around the landmass of Everest.
The Himalaya Mountain maze from space, yellow arrow points
to Mount Everest. Astronauts, orbiting at 5 mi/sec (8 km/sec), have seconds to
find it. Photo courtesy of NASA.
The mountain peak (29,035 feet) scrapes the jet stream. In the
winter, the high-flying jet stream hurtles in from the north and batters Mount
Everest with hurricane-force winds exceeding 177 mph (285 km/h).
Few Earthlings venture this high. Men struggled from 1921 on
to scale the peak. Finally, in 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay succeeded
in climbing Earth’s highest mountain.
Even that high, there's life. On the first expedition, A.F.R. Wollaston, the medical
officer, saw a bearded vulture soaring over North Peak at about 25,000 feet. At
22,000 feet, a naturalist on the next expedition discovered Earth’s highest
permanent residents. Some minute black spiders (Attid spiders) lurk in crevices
among rocky debris. What they eat is a mystery. No plants or any visible sign of
organic life lives this high.
Further Reading:
MountEverest: Does lightning strike Mount Everest?
Panoramas: Turn slowly around and see the 360-degree top-of-the-world view from
Mount Everest’s summit. Photos by Roderick Mackenzie
NASA: Find
Mt. Everest in the maze of mountains
(Answered Mar. 5, 2004, Updated July 22, 2007)
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