spindrift1980

Starting to lie slightly on the grass now, actually.

Rain turning to wet snow in EK, but I can't really see it becoming 'proper' snow as it's already pretty heavy.

Pinky - haven't heard that one before! I wonder where that comes from. Official name is given on the map as Cap Law, but this is supposedly an error and it should really be Gap Law.

I'm envious - it's a lovely location - been up walking there a few times. Here's a photo I took this summer (it's looking very different on the cam at the moment!):

Snow fairly pelting down in EK in big fluffy flakes but it's just a shade too mild and too wet to lie - a pity as it would be accumulating nicely at this rate! Pretty raw and horrible out there in wind-driven wet snow - a day to stay indoors.

Pah, the usual scenario again where EK is turning white but down in Motherwell it's mostly just wet with snow struggling to stick. Hopefully it will improve this evening but currently the temp is hovering between 1 and 2C.

Starting to look pretty wintry in East Kilbride - it was melting between showers at first but hopefully nightfall and a decent 'base' will keep it sticking around.

Some nice rime build-ups on fenceposts too:

Some photos from Glen Shee on Friday, 7/2/14 (Alan O'Dowd):

As it happens, I was walking in the (very snowy) hills above Spittal of Glenshee on Friday. Having been unable to resist a rare day of benign weather forecast for Friday, I took the day off work and was rewarded with a superb day. The snow line was generally about 450 - 500m. I didn't drive as far up as the ski centre, where the summit of the road is 665m. The first photo is at 650m, climbing to just over 800m at the summit of Ben Earb by the third photo.

Almost completely dry in EK today - just a bit of snizzle now and then. Just shows how pronounced the 'rain shadow' effect is in the central belt when the wind is coming from certain directions.

Tiny snowflakes blowing around in a raw wind up in East Kilbride (at about 150m asl).

There was certainly a big frontal snowfall giving 20cm plus to Glasgow and western Scotland on the weekend of 11/12 March 2006, which back then was probably the most snow we'd had since February 2001 or maybe even February 1996. I have to say that my perception of March is that even during the warming climate of the late 1980s onwards, it's generally stayed a pretty cold month, but this might be a particularly northern/Scottish viewpoint.

I don't like the look of the dry area surrounding Glasgow on that chart The Reporting Scotland forecast for Friday mentioned 'snow to fairly low levels for a time' or something along those lines, but it did also feature that dry patch in the Glasgow area!!

Yes, it was 1999/2000 I was thinking of, thanks. Will be interesting to see how the late-lying snow patches fare this year as the big westerly/south-westerly storms have deposited much snow on aspects east through north, which get least sunshine and where snow persists longest. That spring of 1994 was the one where (just short of my 14th birthday) I was first introduced to the joys of hillwalking, so I didn't realise at the time that not every April and May wouldn't feature that level of snow cover!

Often the winters with the largest build-ups of snow on the Scottish mountains are those in which the low ground experiences little snowfall. The period of westerly/south-westerly storms in December and general zonal pattern have obviously been very wet but the uppers have been low enough to keep the vast majority of high altitude precipitation falling as snow. It's worth bearing in mind that ski-ing in Scotland relies primarily on drifting and retention of snow in areas with natural snow-holding capabilities (the figures you quote are level depths, I believe, and there will be drifts many times deeper) and so the winds have played their part in creating drifts which will not disappear readily when the freezing level rises. The coldest spells in winter, on the other hand, are often much drier and calmer. Having said that, this winter has been an extreme example of this not untypical pattern, with almost no snow on low ground but with the south-westerly sourced air not being mild enough to cause frequent or severe thaws or cause rain rather than snow to fall at high altitude. I would need to remind myself of some of the previous papers which have been written on the subject, but 2000/1 (and to a lesser extent 2007/8) spring to mind as winters which saw particularly copious snowfall at high altitude but a notable lack of low ground wintriness for much of the winter. It's also worth noting that the two ski centres which have had the biggest accumulations this winter have been those in the west - Nevis and Glencoe. Cairngorm has done pretty well too, being at high altitude, but of the other eastern centres Glenshee has had a fairly average stop-start season (though it looks healthy at the moment) and the lowest (at 2090ft asl) and most north-eastern of the centres, the Lecht, has seldom had enough snow to open at all, though it was also looking much better yesterday and I think they might be intending to open tomorrow.

Wet snow falling at 300m in the Trossachs today. Didn't go any higher today as the winds were a tad 'fresh'!

If Sunday's forecasts are accurate, I would think there's a fair chance the snow gates will be closed on the A93 just south of Braemar because of drifting on the higher part of the road near the ski centre. At the very least, driving the Braemar to Glenshee section might be 'interesting'.

Stopped about 2 minutes after my last post! Oh well...

Quite a heavy snow shower on in EK at the moment, but it isn't lying. EDIT: It's starting to lie on the grass

Snowing in East Kilbride at the moment.

Some interesting views (and some degree of scepticism) on this here: http://www.winterhighland.info/forum/read.php?2,160860 I have a copy of the Adam Watson book so will need to remind myself of the chapter evaluating the possibility of glaciers existing historically in Scotland.

I think the Lecht opened briefly in December and again just after New Year - the weather is really conspiring against it this winter! It's just as well they've diversified into mountain biking and other activities.

It would seem that there was still enough snow in the Cairngorms that winter for snow to survive from the winter of 1931/1932 right through to the winter of 1932/33 at the Garbh Coire Mor of Braeriach (the most persistent snow site in the British Isles). However, in the autumn of 1933 all snow in this corrie melted for the first time in living memory (indeed, the first ever recorded time). Since then, it has also melted in the autumns of 1959, 1996, 2003 & 2006.

Proof that it has snowed in the winter of 2013-14 - you just have to climb a bit to find it! (photos - Alan O'Dowd)