Superficial winter
14th March 2025
The hills looked distinctly wintry again this morning, with some fresh snow overnight down to 400 metres. Like yesterday, on closer inspection this was superficial and was vanishing quickly at lower elevations and where exposed to the sun. It was an incredibly pleasant day on the hill, being dry and bright with light winds.
A light dusting of snow had fallen down to 400 metres overnight, as seen on the shady and sheltered path into Coire Ardair. The higher slopes behind are South facing and exposed to the sun, and have very little fresh snow on them. All snow beside the path had vanished on the return journey.
Coire Ardair. A stark contrast between the presence of snow on the North facing slopes and lack of it on the South facing slopes.
A closer look into Coire Ardair.
An even closer look showing some thin ice in the area of ‘Last Post’ and in the top right of the photo on ‘South Post Direct’.
Plateau underfoot conditions at around 900 metres. The new snow has fallen mostly on bare ground.
Binnein Shuas (746m) is the summit in the foreground. The snow on here rapidly disappeared in the time that observations were made. Behind Binnein Shuas is Coire Mòr Chlachair and to the right is the North facing coires of Aonach Beag and Beinn Eibhinn. All of these coires are holding on the some older snow, which is firm in all locations.
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