Snowandrocks

Mwis forecast for the Cairngorms looks interesting - not often they use words like these.

IBCs are great for drying especially if you have a nice open windy spot to stack them. A neighbour has taken this a step further and uses his tractor to move one right to his back door to avoid any effort whatsoever!

5 or 6 rumbles of thunder this afternoon along with some absolutely torrential rain - completely overwhelmed the guttering and washed a lot of mud and silt down onto the road. Seemed very localised to the Bennachie range though, from deep water to bone dry with in a mile or two.

Very interesting, the grazing around here isn't showing much sign of fresh growth at all so far. Our neighbour has also had a terrible time lambing - the persistent cold and wet not doing them any good at all. Hopefully a bit of warmth this week will help on both counts.

Quite wild when the showers come through, whipping up the snow so there's almost no visibility at times. I've also lost the roof from my tractor shed - it had been looking a bit sketchy but I had hoped it would last until next summer.

Occasional showers of heavy blowing snow coming through. Lovely light powdery snow blowing around everywhere. A few people might have to do without their shopping this morning!

Heavy blowing snow on and off for the past hour or so. Settling nicely too.

Great day for being outside. Surprisingly warm sunshine and the wind has gradually dropped as the day went on. Even managed lunch outside and just been for a walk without a jacket on - almost a 30 degree swing compared to just over a week ago.

Dry but windy here today with only a few glimpses of sunshine. Only patches of snow left in the garden but still quite a bit in the forest nearby which is a little bit higher but still below 200m.

The drip of the thaw continues here too but just about every access road still looks like this - 6ft drifts of heavy wet un-ploughable snow. Slow work with a digger! Thankfully our track is sheltered by the forest from the South and East so we got off lightly this time. I also heard from a friend that the Glenshee road has been buried by an avalanche just south of Braemar so might be a while before it's dug out.

Chaos is putting it mildly, still blowing in with almost every road around here either blocked completely or single track and only just about passable by 4x4. Farmers doing a great job of trying to keep the drifts at bay but it's filling in in as quick as they can plough it. If it's like this down here, the more exposed roads must be pretty wild - Bennachie is just a swirling mass of spindrift. Really quite severe conditions with genuine white out away from shelter and many villages cut off but barely a mention from the met office.

I haven't been out but unsurprisingly Fubar, a NE Facebook page, reports endless roads blocked or badly affected by drifting all over Aberdeenshire.

Quite serious conditions even to relatively low levels in inland Aberdeenshire tonight. Bit of a miss from the met office - even with the Hilux on winter tyres and some fairly committed/aggressive drift bashing it was touch and go about getting home. Much more severe than anything earlier in the week.

A heavy shower just passed through here too - combined with sudden squalls of wind it got pretty dramatic for 15 mins with the snow blowing off the trees and roof!

Snowing quite heavily and blowing around here too, a couple of inches fallen already. I hadn't really been paying much attention to the forecast so was quite surprised when I looked out!

Don't ever decide to build an igloo. After endless hours of making blocks, I'm definitely enjoying this cold beer in the surprisingly strong sunshine.

Minus 17c at 0930 this morning according to the pickup so could have been a little colder earlier on. Not in a particular frost hollow here so pretty exceptional stuff.

Strathdon/Corgarff or the Cabrach would be my choice if you really want to go for snow! Otherwise, just pick somewhere high. A friend lives at 300m just off the Tarland Road and gets noticeably more snow than even we do at this relatively snowy exposed location.

Is that Moray council? Aberdeenshire are the opposite, our single track only leads to 3 houses and is ploughed and gritted daily by the big county plough with a local farmer on contract keeping on top of things more regularly while snow is falling/blowing in. Seems ridiculous but not complaining!

Yep, good winter rated all terrains are the way forward. I have chains for my Hilux but it only ever gets stuck on BF Goodrich All Terrains when the snow builds up underneath and lifts the wheels clear of the ground so never bother with them.

An inch or so of lovely powder overnight with occasionally heavy showers blowing through since about 11am.

Took advantage of a slight break in the weather this afternoon to drop off some supplies to a friend up in Strathdon. It was just after the plough had been up so we managed to get quite far in with some "enthusiastic" driving. It was filling in again quickly though and eventually we had to ditch the pickup and walk through some fairly serious blowing snow. I think that might be the last time the tractor makes it up for a while now, the dry snow that's come with the drop in temperature will likely fill the 9ft plough banks in level overnight. Friend was happy with her bread, milk and a fine piece though so that's the important thing! Streamable Video STREAMABLE.COM Watch this video on Streamable. Streamable Video STREAMABLE.COM Watch this video on Streamable.

Yep, believe it or not I once got stuck in a drift at the top of Spring hill Road with snow blowing off the playing fields. I worked as a taxi driver whilst at uni and it was about 3am with a car load of drunks who had to get out and push after I'd dug us out!

That's him, the photo was titled Charlie Sna Ploo! I expected they would have needed the blower to get up there but I guess it just depends how it blows in. Light snow falling here now - looks like proper stuff after a day of wet rubbish.

A friend up in Strathdon at 390m reports the blowing snow continues. Although a tractor did manage to make it up the road for the first time in several days. Hoping to ski out to them and drop off some essentials tomorrow so will report back!