Another Wintry Day.
19th January 2023
It was another wintry day on Creag Meagaidh with strong winds and frequent snow showers. Fresh windslab is being deposited on top of some already weak layers (see yesterday’s blog post). Weak cornices are continuing to form. I think it very likely that there would be some avalanche activity in the area today, but visibility was poor and so it was not seen. Hopefully a nicer day tomorrow, before some mild and windy weather arrives for the weekend.
Prints on the path. Humans are not the only creatures to make use of the Coire Ardair path.
Quite wild conditions at the top of the trees at 550 metres.
Poor visibility and hard going on foot at 900 metres.
Heading down it started to clear up a bit.
A few patches of blue sky about when back down at Aberarder. Although quite pleasant at lower levels it would still be wild on the summits at this point.
The predicted freezing level (in metres) for midday today across the North Atlantic/Western Europe. Although we are still in the influence of relatively cold air (FL<500m) there is a low of very mild air (FL>2500m) out in the Atlantic, and unfortunately it is coming this way in time for the weekend.
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Keith Horner
19th January 2023 7:56 pm
Your Mystic Meg (or should that be Mystic Meggie?) prediction of last week was spot on – it’s certainly been a very cold and wintry week over much of the country and seems like remaining wild and unsettled into next week. Will be interesting to see how a FL of 2500m impacts on the current complicated snowpack – if any of it lasts with the rise in temperatures that are likely to occur – I suspect the Laggan Dam jets will be working overtime to deal with the resulting snowmelt…..
meagaidhadmin
20th January 2023 1:34 pm
Yes, that Met Office briefing was pretty accurate if a little optimistic on snow amounts. Overall, I was pretty impressed with their accuracy.
(‘Normal service’ looks like returning to Meggie: projected freezing level of 2300m at midday on Saturday. Yikes!)