Scottish-Irish Skier

Hope you have a great time. I've a sneaky wee week booked in Les Arcs late January. It's peltin doon wi snaw there the now. Cannae stop looking at the webcam. In the meantime, am aff tae ma folks in the highlands for christmas. Looking like a damp and squelchy yin sadly.

Also prevents rain getting in, which can be a problem if it's very heavy and/or the chimney is not in use. Many a damp patch has been caused by a bricked up fire place and an open chimney pot. If I climb a tree, I'm almost at 200 m here.

First snaw reported by my folks in Carrbridge.

Hud ma first frost, so time tae check in. It's gonnae be a cauld yin a reckon. Woman achieves 120 consecutive months of skiing WWW.BBC.CO.UK Helen Rennie managed to find enough snow to ski on every month in Scotland for the past 10 years.

Well I had an utterly crap winter for snow here. Even a sneaky second week in the alps went horribly wrong when I injured my knee the day before. Thankfully I'd booked half board in a wee french family run hotel, so what I missed in skiing, I made up for in delicious food. Been in hibernation since; couldnae stand the sight of snaw and cauld when I came back. Just wanted the winter tae end. And it certainly has this weekend, in glorious style; absolutely crackin easter weekend.

No fir skiers then? EDIT Snawin away here. Lying nicely.

Wet snaw/sleet here. T = 4.3. DP = -0.3 C. Had totally forgotten about winter. #unexpected EDIT. Attempting tae stick now. T dropping fairly rapidly. EDIT 2 0.5 cm of snaw now lying. Will soon top my Winter 2019 record.

Jeezo, seems like weeks now since I saw a chart that had any sort of appeal. FI 10 days oot, but I can dream. Basically nae winter here so far this year.

Well, while that was a decent cauld spell for many, it was utterly pants snaw-wise for me here in the E. Borders. Ye ken things are bad when you've nae snaw, yet even @101_North is daein a wee dance in some. Anyway, when the last chance passed I went and booked another week in the Alps fir masel skiing. No way I'm ending this winter wioot another proper snaw fix. Totally broke now, but what the hell, you only live once. Cauld and frosty this morning, then damp muck fir days tae come.

I think this wis mair hope than anything. #pish

Seems tae be a bit sleety here at Hillend ski centre. No much prep for now so hard tae tell.

MetO saying heavy rain tae sleet tae snaw fir masel. Cannae say it's looking like much tae write hame aboot! Decent frost this morning though. While I don't want tae lose any friends over this, I huv tae say it was rather nice walking the dugs in the snawless sunshine yesterday. Was only 2 C, but t-shirt weather as so still and dry.

Had a lovely walk there on New Year's day, as is tradition (that or on Christmas day). Did you drive past a muckle 'Yes' sign near the railyway station on the way up? Ma folk's hoose. Chip aff the auld block I am. Cairn's the best pub in the Highlands, but I'm biased.

Whit a pleasant surprise. Light snaw here at Hillend fir ma Friday ski sesh.

If the air is understaturated with water, then snow can 'evaporate' directly from the solid to the vapour phase. It's not strictly melting as the temperature remains below the ice point as you say. Sublimation is the correct term. The process is endothermic (takes in heat), so needs to draw heat (deltaH, the enthalpy of the transition) from somewhere to occur, and causes localised cooling (evaporative cooling) as a result. Infrared radiation from the sun can help here. I understand ablation refers to the net ice loss process affecting the lower parts of a glacier, so includes melting, sublimation, calving or anything else that removes ice. So I suppose it sort of applies tae snaw melt.

MetO have light back edge snaw the night for me after the rain. Should all then freeze up nicely.

Austria today. Hopefully us next week (EDIT, ok, maybe just 10% of that would be just fine).

Aye, fairly wild here with some light rain blawin aroond. I'll need tae get fully suited up fir the dug walk. The overnight runs look quite promising for next week. I see @BurntFishTrousers has appeared; that's often a guid straw in the wind fir the snaw. My documents are all over in Dublin. Will soon be changing my moniker tae Irish Skier thanks tae gran. Will make my household fully foreign technically. After that, first stop is Donegal for a holiday where that side of the family comes from. EDIT. Was fascinating looking over the old documents. Gran and grampa married in Ballymena (where grampa worked at the time in the police), but by the time it was registered a couple of days later, they were already back down 'in Lowestoft on active war service'. Gran was an Irish migrant anti-aircraft gunner during the blitz; an 'ack ack girl'. Anyway, mon the Scottish snaw; I understand Donegal's not got the greatest record for this.

Well, looking increasingly promising in terms of a cool doon going forward. Oor resident expert @lorenzo posted last night in the model threads aboot how the MJO wis gan intae phase 5 thoosan whilst mercury wis aligning wi jupiter etc. Hudnae a clue whit he wis oan aboot, but sounded really promising. Whit a see is basically cauld uppers = mibbe snaw.

It was pretty knife edge for xmas. Was green untill a couple of weeks before and I was bricking it looking at the cams; alps don't come cheap, especially with brexit, so you don't want saved pennies spent on rock /grass hopping. Can do that here all year! Finally snawed big style, but then there was a pretty serious wet thaw just ahead of the xmas week. Was Scottish weather the first couple of days and I got soaked day 2; everything below 1600 m was utterly sodden and patchy, with freezing level about 2000m. Then on the 25th the T/FL dropped and the sun came out. Lovely weather but snow rather hard pack due to the re-freeze. Still, beats hillend! Anyway, just like Scotland, the western alps have suffered a rather poor start and really need snaw, but seems Austria eastwards has been doing well.

Aye, total borefest. Absolutely naff all to say about the weather. Just dry and grey. Almost wish it was pishin doon or something, just for a change from this blandness. Anyway, to brighten things up, here's a few snaps from Samoens, Grand Massif, the other week, where Clan SS met up with the French side of the family for Christmas. And of course a bit of skiing. Huv tae include one of Mini Miss SS getting her second star from the ESF in just two weeks of skiing. So proud. We chip aff the auld block. Unfortunately, much as I've tried, Serena Williams is her heroine, with the skiing coming second place. Ach well, ye cannae win em all. As for the weather, looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer for the cauld, at least anything more than a brief northerly toppler. In the meantime, hope everyone had a nice christmas and happy new year to all!

#snaw

I think this is the first time I've seen heavy rain 'accumulating' on the back lawn.

A bit of light freezing rain but mainly hail here so far. T = 0.7 C, DP = -2.9 C.

Sleety pish here after a decent frost. Sleety pish actually attempting to stick on the patches of frost which remain. All kindae wet, cauld and half ersed, but wintry all the same.