skifreak

Hopefully winter. To be honest about the only thing worse than a Trump presidency is Trump not seeing out the full term and the vice president Pence stepping into the top job!

We're half way through meteorological winter and add that to autumn, can anyone recall such a similar lack of stormy weather? It's the benign nature of the weather rather than temperature or lack of snow that strikes me as somewhat unprecedented.

A wee lull at Glencoe as midnight approached, but wind has picked up in last 20 minutes and is whipping the snow up. Radar shows the leading edge of more organised stuff just about here. Couple more pix from earlier: http://www.winterhighland.info/pix/pixalbum.php?pix_id=1207

Snow is on at the moment in Leadhills, it's actually quite bright just now at Glencoe but there is a wall of black to the North coming this way! Had feared the new webcam would have put a curse on the snow at Leadhills, lol! View it at http://www.winterhighland.info/cams/lowtherhill/

The primary driver is that in the Highlands, those from most of England and certainly the areas with the majority of the population have travelled further and thus committed more money and effort to make a trip to the hills than people from any part of Scotland would have. Thus they are more likely to go out when the weather is foul. Of course different mountain activities have different needs and different tolerances of conditions, obviously technical ice climbing (rather than just slogging up a snow filled gully) can't be done on a warm day, but what is merely a need for googles, facemask and another layer for an experienced winter climber, could be overwhelming for a well equipped walking group not accustomed to the physical and mental effort of dealing with such conditions.

Been working with the guys at Lowther Hills Ski Club and the Hopetoun Arms Hotel in Leadhills to install a new webcam in Scotland's highest village. Snow is beginning to lie and showers are now rattling in. Just a hint that a streamer might set up as showers are beginning to get more frequent! Heading up the road to Glencoe this evening - could be interesting !! :o View the cam: http://www.winterhighland.info/cams/lowtherhill/

Looks like there's been 2-3 inches of snow for Glencoe and Nevis since dusk. Showers piling in, some absolute downpours here in Inverness and a couple of lively wee storms have come across Loch Linnhe - lighting up the Loch as seen from Fort William. There was some chatter about having a Scottish meet-up? Well if you want to increase your snow chances, there's plenty availability in the hobbit houses at Glencoe's base at 1200ft on Rannoch Moor on Wednesday and Thursday night! Few beers and take in a blizzard! I'll be there Wed and Thursday! Hopefully they'll look like this by Wednesday:

This morning I left Inverness not long after 6am and headed down the A82, now it was 6ºc on the car thermometer in Inverness, it bounced around between 5 and 7ºc before the road turns into Drumnadrochit. Now often the temperature drops a degree or two there when there's not much wind at this time of year, but it was still showing 6 on the car around the 40mph zone on the Urquhart Castle side of the village. Going round one of the corners coming out of the village, I suddenly couldn't see!! I hadn't entered fog, because I had seen moments before that it was clear, I quickly realised it wasn't my eyes because I could see clearly inside the car. I banged the demister to max, then instinctively hit the windscreen wipers, and it cleared - briefly! Just then the temperature alarm on the car which goes off at 4ºc beeped, I look at the display and it was -1ºc !! The temperature change was so abrupt the outside of the windscreen instantly fogged over - it spread across like the ice on windows in the Day after Tomorrow! I can honestly say, I have never ever seen that happen before while driving.

I've certainly thought that the astronomical seasons were more meaningful in Northern Scotland than the meteorological ones.

Happy New Year ! Hints of a flurry in the air briefly! Anything brewing to the North?

I am going to strangle that blackbird in the rowan tree outside my bedroom window!!

I hope it's not sticky keys

I hope it's not sticky keys

So does this count as a technical white Christmas for the city centre of Inverness!!

I'm going to risk going out for a post Xmas dinner walk along the river, but worry there's a ninja shower hiding behind a tree along the river! Dew point 0ºc at the airport... hmmm!

Merry Christmas all, currently still and dry in Inverness... something brewing? Had some pretty strong gusts earlier and the Dornach Bridge was shut to all traffic for a while.

Snow lying in Aviemore at the moment. Some fairly prolonged snow showers coming through in the West and falling on the A82 over Rannoch Moor.

I've just composed myself after looking at the 18z GFS, should I go to the model thread?

It was snowing fairly heavily around Moy on the A9 mid afternoon, road suddenly turned from black to white - then by Slochd Summit it was dry again and the road was completely black on the Slochd Dual Carriageway. Few flurries in Aviemore, but nothing more so far.

Well I've canned my original Christmas plan and am staying in Inverness, irony is that the weather might be less severe further North - but I think I'll have enough rough drives by the weekend judging by the forecast. While the focus is on wind, I'm a bit concerned that we could effectively get 5 days rainfall in one go, by virtue of snow piling up from now till late Christmas Eve, then being subjected to hurricane force winds, heavy or torrential rain and potentially double digit Munro Level temperatures for a while in the East, and 6-8ºc not out of the question on Western mountains in the early hours through to dawn on Christmas Day. The temperature fluctuations could be spectacular with snow falling at most levels giving way to rain at all levels and back again! It could get really rather ugly, does look as if the Inner Moray Firth and then Aberdeen/shire could get the biggest battering from the wind.

I'm supposed to be driving from Inverness to the far NW of Sutherland on Christmas morning. I think I'll be bringing camping stove, food, flask, shovel, large saws, ropes.... A few years ago did this and it was ferocious driving along by Loch Stack, sheets of water coming off the loch reducing visibility. When I reached the destination we said 'oh it's not so bad here'... then were physically unable to get out the passenger side of the car because of the wind!

A couple of photos from the West Highland Line on Tuesday of Loch Treig, now while this is part of a Hydro Electric scheme, staff on the train as well as regular travelers said they'd never seen the loch so low, particularly at this time of year. It's low enough that remains of old houses can be seen further up the loch and if you were to go to the other side from the railway you would see the old alignment of the West Highland Line which followed the shore of the Loch at it's original level. Loch Treig is so low the water doesn't even come close to the base of the Treig Dam, so the water level is actually well below the historic loch level, such that what water was running in the area meant the unusual sight of the River Treig running SW backwards into the loch instead of the usual NE towards the River Spean!

The moderating effect of open water at Loch Morlich quite marked at present, it's -4.5ºc at the beach and -6.5ºc a few 100 metres away behind trees at the Glenmore campsite. Glenmore is a bit narrower as you head East from the Loch and the narrower Ciste Gully seems to channel cold down into the Eastern part of the glen more efficiently than the wider open space in Coire Cas . Over in the West a new Summit webcam is online after year's hiatus after the summit building got destroyed and the power cable bust in November 2015. Network Rail have had to swap out 20 x 30kg deep cycle batteries every 8-12 days at the summit for the last year to keep the RETB (Radio Electronic Token Block)signalling working on the West Highland Line!! Cam: http://www.winterhighland.info/cams/glencoe/

It's interesting to note that 2014 was milder than 2012 and 2015 warmer than 1989 and 2007 - these being right up there amongst the worst Scottish ski seasons. Begs the question - are milder winters delivering better ski seasons than they did in the past?

Interesting that the forecast expects a drier than average start to winter, last year we paid big time for a dry first 2 months to autumn and December spectacularly made up for it with crazy rainfall - particularly over the South Eastern Cairngorms as witnessed by the River Dee demolishing the A93 near Crathie. There seems to be some causal similarities to late 2000 going into winter 2001, late 2009 going into winter 2010 - both great Scottish Ski Seasons, but also late 2002 going into 2003 - which was a prolonged winter drought up here. CairnGorm was by and large reliant on a base on the upper mountain that fell in October for any skiing at all that year. My two concerns from the my back yard perspective are thus going into this winter,1 - that we will get a lot of blocking but it will be on top of Highland Scotland too much to get the snow benefit of colder than average conditions or 2 - that we will extend the dry run for another month or 2 then have an even more spectacular wet spell than last December!