Scottish Mountain Winter Snowfall

[skifreak]

Todays snow was indeed heavy, it was also liquid form! Groan! Wild and wet, skiing was restricted to the top of the mountain by high winds (yes go figure :blush: ) with only the Ptarmigan Tow running for skiers, mid morning through lunchtime even the funicular was closed by the wind, steady 85mph at the tunnel mouth. Leaving us with nothing to do, but lap the Ptarmigan Tow in horizontal rain, at least it was a tail wind, excellent fast carving !!

Oh and by the way, at the tunnel mouth on the Funicular Railway at 3500ft on Friday the wind reached 176 (One Hundred and Seventy Six) MPH equalling the all time UK record....

Edited January 13, 2007 by skifreak

[johnholmes]

The picture you paint is very probably why many years ago I gave up skiing in the Cairngorms, yuk.

Not that its that much better in the Alps at the moment.

I live in hope things will change in the next week or so.

Hope it does for Scotland as well.

John

[Thundery wintry showers]

I can believe that; it's been mostly between 12 and 14C here all day, so if Scotland hasn't been significantly colder I would expect rain except on the highest parts of the Cairngorms.

I imagine that skiing conditions should improve next week; although it will remain mild it may be less mild than recently.

[jonk18]

Is everyone to busy looking at T+384? Right now something rather interesting is going on, take a look at the Rain Radar and the Western Highlands. Except it's only rain at low levels, red returns over the Nevis Range mountains and a temperature at 3700ft of -4c on Aonach Mor suggest that it's absolutely puking!!!

The precipitation is edging into the Western fringes of the 'Gorms now, and if you take a look at the Drumochter webcam on Traffic Scotland, it is a sight to warm your hearts! :lol:

http://www.trafficscotland.org/views.asp?m...ralscotland.gif

At the moment it is -7c on the summit of CairnGorm Mountain and over at the Lecht (sadly the webcam doesnt update at night) the snow guns are blazing a base in preperation for the arrival of what is currently out west.

Keep up the snow dances!!

looks like more snow up there now if you look on the web cam

[kippure]

The rain has washed most of the snow away.

[Ross B]

Skifreak will be after you for saying that

[Zerouali lives]

From Wednesday onwards it looks like the Ski resorts are gonna get buried in snow.

[skifreak]

Despite the roller coaster we're up quite a bit on where we were the middle of last week, width of the base on the Top runs at CairnGorm is much improved and the Upper Cas has fairly decent cover and it's possible to ski to the middle station. Saturday was a real left trouser leger in more ways than one, really looked set for the season to really kick on and build on Thursday/Fridays snow/thaw/freeze cycle, so the fact we got an inch of rain instead of snow was a bit of a bummer!

Out West there's a good base on the natural snow fields and gullies that form the main upper runs, like Goose Gully at Nevis. Getting that base is more than half the battle, if the weather delivers what the models suggest then

If theres any more rain though my new address will be somewhere floating in the Moray Firth!

[jonk18]

looks like its snowin on the drumochter cam again surley a good sign!!

[kippure]

Drumochter/ Its snowing.

[skifreak]

Never mind drumochter, there was a white blob on the rain radar pretty much over Glencoe an hour ago!!! Bring it on!

[Derbyshire_snow]

Never mind drumochter, there was a white blob on the rain radar pretty much over Glencoe an hour ago!!! Bring it on!

Are you or are you not better of heading for cairngorm isn't that where the better conditions for skiing will be

[Cumulonimbus Tower]

Hope this is the correct place to put this, but i just found a great webcam of Drumochter pass on a travell Scotland site. http://www.trafficscotland.org/views.asp?m...ralscotland.gif

Lots more 'Snow Tracking' tools on here

[skifreak]

Hmm yea, just when you might actually need to use TrafficScotland, they delete the site because of the volume of traffic hitting it.

[Hiya]

I go by the rule "if its slow you can go, if its intermittent so are the roads, and if its broke the A9's shut somewhere" for that website.

[Ross B]

Pretty snowy on the hills :lol:

http://saislochaber.blogspot.com/

http://saisncairngorms.blogspot.com/

http://saisscairngorms.blogspot.com/

Forecast is good for more:

http://www.mwis.org.uk/

Possibly head into the mountains on sunday

[Ross B]

Going to be heading into the mountains tommorrow.

Target is Ben Starav (1078m)

Going to be chilly

Forecast : http://www.mwis.org.uk/mountain/WH.PDF

Hopefuly see some snow Going to be pretty hard going considering the mountains going to be covered in snow down to relatively low levels. Also an avalanche risk (cat 3).

80% chance of cloud free munros so should be able to get some good pictures again

Leaving at 6am so off to bed in a bit.

[skifreak]

I think you call this a bluebird powder day:

Nevis Range - Monday 22nd Jan 06

Edited January 23, 2007 by skifreak

[MKN]

Very nice pic there skifreak, hows things looking at the moment, any1 have any pics?

[skifreak]

Here's a stack of pics from Glencoe on Wednesday:

http://www.winterhighland.info/2006/pix/pi....php?pix_id=286

[skifreak]

Went for a butchers up the 'Gorm on what turned out to be a sunny and pleasent afternoon, with good granular spring snow for ripping up on Coire Cas.

^ Boarders preparing for the last run of the day as the final rays of afternoon sun hit the Ptarmigan Roof.

More: http://www.winterhighland.info/pix/pixalbum.php?pix_id=293

[MKN]

Hows things comparing to this time last year skifreak?

[skifreak]

Better than last year on CairnGorm, and miles ahead for the Western resorts. This stage last year Glencoe and Nevis Range were still to open at all.

Nevis has a pretty good base on the Goose and Summit areas, and there is stacks in the back corries. Glencoe's upper runs and the natural gullies and snowfileds on the mid-mountain are loaded. These take a long time to fill properly, and it's been a long time since Glencoe has had such an extensive and good base in January, this base has gradually being built up through snow/thaw/freeze cycling since late November, which meant when Glencoe kicked off their season earlier this month, they did so by offering up the best conditions in the country on day one.

Looking at CairnGorm last January was cold and dry, there was no snowsports since before Christmas till the 28th of Jan 2006, there was just short of being enough snow at the Top and conditions didn't change for better or worse for six weeks. The little bit of snow that finally allowed skiing to get underway again at the end of Jan 2006 actually fell from the cloud layer trapped under an inversion!!

http://www.winterhighland.info/pix/display...&height=510

^Link to photo of Coire Cas on 28th Jan 2006 (This forum tells me it cant be a valid image!)

http://www.winterhighland.info/forum/file.php?2,file=1664

^Link to photo of Coire Cas on 29th Jan 2007 - decent width and a good base.

[MKN]

Things look far better then, i just hope its resulted in an increase in skiers as i think a bit of investment is definately needed.

[Thundery wintry showers]

It does illustrate that westerlies aren't always such a bad thing for the Scottish ski resorts- westerlies generally mean more precipitation, and thus, unless it's notably mild, snow high up.

I remember hearing that the seasons of 1983/84 and 1993/94 were supposed to have been very good for skiing up in Scotland.