General Situation // Scottish Ski & Winter Activity Report // Winterhighland

CairnGorm Mountain is offering early season snowsports in the Top Basin with both the Ciste and Ptarmigan Tows scheduled for Sunday, which would give the full Top Basin vertical of 600ft. However, a milder night tonight some there could be some snow loss so the Ciste Tow will need to be assessed AM. The best of the overhead and least wind will be in the morning, cloud will thicken and cloud base lower into the afternoon ahead of incoming rain, but it may just about stay dry during lift operating hours. Wind speeds will ramp up late afternoon into the evening.

A dip in temperature again on Monday before the freezing level potentially goes well above the summits on Tuesday, forecast models have Munro Level temperature ranging from +3 or +4°c to as high as +8°c and there is a risk for significantly stormy conditions to hit Highland Scotland in the first half of the new week (see forecast discussion below).

Due to the very uncertain conditions over the next few days, snowsports tickets are currently on sale for Sunday for CairnGorm and an assessment will be made later on Sunday for prospects for Monday as hopefully by then forecasts will have firmed up on how Monday and Tuesday are going to play out!

Last night an area of heavier precipitation with mountain snow came to just South of CairnGorm, with radar returns indicating a couple of cm falling on higher plateau areas in the vicinity of CairnGorm itself. SE winds reached Hurricane Force for a while, so there was considerable further drifting of snow into suitably aligned fences in the Top Basin and the upper part of the M1 RaceTrack and top of the Traverse also caught a considerable amount of new snow last night.

Below, there is a patchy base down mid mountain but tending to fizzle out before mid station with little snow level below the top of the Gunbarrel.

So far apart from the Lecht nowhere has been even close to having sufficient snow for lift served riding amongst the Scottish areas and sadly the Lecht having been fairly close to skiable cover between the fences has seen a slow but steady thaw over recent days and only small patches remain.

Snow has been accumulating above Island Rock at Glencoe, which means the top of the Main Basin, Happy Valley and the Spring Run were slowly filling in. Fluctuations in temperature are consolidating the existing snow, so hopefully some of this will come through the roller coaster this coming week to give the start of a base on the sections of the mountain that need the most snow.

At Glencoe the Access Chairlift has reopened for winter and is now open daily (wind permitting). Not enough snow to push out an official sledge park yet, but there will be snow factory piles to play on this weekend. As the sledge park is not ready, the Plateau Cafe is not yet open. First chair up at 9am, last chair up at 3.30pm and last chair down at 4pm. White Corries Cafe at the base is open 8am to 4.30pm during early December.

The Nevis Range Gondola is open daily at present (wind permitting) with the last gondola up at 3.45pm and last down at 4pm. The Gondola will be closed from Monday 5th January, until early February.

At update both the A93 Cairnwell Pass and A939 Lecht Pass were open.

:: England Club Fields

The three Pennine Clubfields all enjoyed a November start to their season, with Allenheads and Weardale notching up the first lift served UK snow turns of the season. There has not yet been sufficient snow at Raise in the Lake District and all clubfields are currently waiting for new snow.

For both Weardale and Allenheads, you need to join the club with a season pass, these are still available for both at this time.

Please check club access rules / availability if not a club member / pass holder.

Weardale: https: //skiweardale.com/ .
Allenheads: http://ski-allenheads.co.uk/ .
Yad Moss: https: //yadmoss.co.uk/ .
Raise: https: //www.ldscsnowski.co.uk/ .

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:: Mountain Weather

At 6pm in the West at the Glencoe SSC hut at 850m the mid mountain temperature was 0.0°c, with a SE wind at a mean of 31 gusting 60mph. At the base it was +3.9°c at 6pm.

The SAIS summit AWS on Aonach Mor was reporting -2.1°c. The Met Office station was reporting a Southerly wind at 38 gusting 67mph (the Met Office AWS is returning incorrect temperature data). The Tower 17 AWS on the Gondola was offline due to a flat battery and it is unlikely to recharge over the next few days! At Tulloch Station (237m) the temperature was +6°c.

In the East the CairnGorm the Met Office Summit AWS reported -2.1°c with a Storm Force South Easterly on an increasing trajectory at a mean of 62 gusting 81mph. Aviemore was at +7.2°c at 6pm.

The Met Office Cairnwell AWS (3061ft /934m) reported -0.3°c with a SE wind at a mean of 57 gusting 74 mph.

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:: Mountain Forecast Discussion

Sunday will be a mirror image of Saturday with the morning seeing the best chance of brighter interludes before cloud thickens up into the afternoon. Probably dry for most of daylight hours, but during the afternoon initially moderate Southerly wind will back SE and start to pick up as the first spots of rain arrive on the wind. Rain may be briefly preceded by high level snow or freezing rain, but most of the precipitation will be rain at all levels through the evening.

During Sunday, expecting plus 2 rising +4°c at Munro Level as rain sets in, wind rising to SE 40 gusting 60mph by or soon after dusk on Sunday. The freezing level falls back early Monday, when we may see snow showers for a number of hours on higher slopes with the Munro Level temperature around 0 to +1°c, before again rising after dusk. Uncertain windspeeds for Monday, likely to fluctuate between around 20 to 25 gusting 40mph, and bursts of 40 gusting 60mph plus.

It is more likely than not going to be the a considerably milder day on Tuesday, but there is a big spread in forecast Munro Level temperatures from +4 up to +8°c. There have been a number of model runs throwing up surface level Storm Force winds at some point on Tuesday or Tuesday into Wednesday and the recent UKV mesoscale model runs from the Met Office have high 80 to low 90mph surface level gusts on the East Coast near and around Loch Linnhe overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning. However, it is worth noting there is nearly a 40mb spread in surface level pressure for Fort William on Tuesday evening across various ensemble outputs, some of the runs that deepen the low the most actually keep it further away.

The uncertainty is being caused by a very fine margin between a new low pressure being a fairly shallow affair staying South of the jet stream, vs it being caught in the jetstream and exiting to the North. Such a left exit of a developing low from a strong jetstream will induce rapid cyclogenesis.

Until this potentially named storm either develops or does not , what happens next remains even more uncertain. Just to emphasis the point, by Thursday there is currently a 15°c spread in 850hpa temperature in just the GFS 12z ensemble for the Central Highlands.

That said, at present the balance of the model output points towards a flatter, but cooler zonal flow in the medium term. Potentially a good outcome for the mountains, particularly the West Coast, with copious amounts of precipitation and just cold enough for snow on the mountains, such that it has more chance of actually sticking to the higher slopes in high winds than if it were notably colder! It will however be utterly minging at low levels near the West Coast in this outcome!

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:: Webcams and Weather Stations

Lowther Hill: Leadhills webcam is online (24/7).

GLENCOE: Most mountain webcams online and the first updated images will be shortly before 8am. The sledge park camera is online 24/7. Wind speed is available from base and mid mountain, temperature / humidity are also available from the top of the Access Chair. Summit has no power at present.

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