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"Warm" winters

"Warm" winters


Postby martin1909 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:05 pm

A question for all you experienced mountaineers and walkers.

A few years ago, I was given a set of crampons and an ice axe and for one reason or another I've just not had the time to use them. I was hoping this winter would be the winter where I could get myself booked on a course or 2 and get up the hills top hone my winter skills

My question to you is how often do we get a January/winter up this hills like this one when it’s very mild with not a great amount of long lying snow? I was up Meall Buidhe (Glen Lyon) this week and there was next to nothing, even on the higher tops of the lawers range (from where i seen them anyway).

Are winters in the hills like this now or are they normally a bit "colder"/snowier? (I put cold in quotations because I know it is still very cold with wond chill etc. Certainly wasnt warm up Meall Buidhe :lol: )

I know there have been periods of certainly quite deep snow last Nov/Dec but it seems to have thawed away at a massive rate.
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby prog99 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 5:24 pm

From my climbing logs and observations. I could go back further but it’s fairly interesting.
2020/2021 - cold and snowy. Locked down though
2019/2020 - didn’t get good until late February and then we were locked down
2018/2019 - Mild with a few cold blips
2017/2018 - A great winter
2016/2017 - Mild with a few cold spells
2015/2016 - slow start but got really good
2014/2015 - another good winter
2013/2014 - I remember it snowed a lot!
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby Scraggygoat » Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:44 pm

The UK having a maritime climate means that conditions at any particular time can be hugely variable. Having virtually no snow in January is not unusual, but disappointing. Build up come still happen.

It’s this climate that makes UK mountain winters special, if it was consistently cold we’d be all on skis or snow shoes, and going Winter walking would be seen as mad. The swings in temperature mean we can build up hard neve very quickly (without being dependant on repeat cycles of sunshine to do the required melt) for relatively little snow and still have easy access at glen level. But equally it can strip quickly if it’s that little bit too warm and the wind acts as a hair dryer.

It’s all part of the fun. As for long term climatology judging on your own experience is too short a time frame and to oberservation biased a dataset to be meaningful. I can point back to personal observations of bare hills in Jan and Feb in the 1990s but is that meaningful, probably not.

Sod’s law says two exceptional winters in Scotland were predominantly lost due to lockdowns; Foot and Mouth and last winter, and a third comprising brilliant end of winter spring alpine conditions at the start of covid lockdown one. So if you take the last three decades averaged a one in ten chance of restrictions stopping play, probably a two in ten chance of bugger all, three in ten of poor conditions for cumulatively a month or more, leaving moderate to good two in ten and consistently very good two in ten.
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby jmarkb » Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:12 pm

It's not too unusual for there to be not much snow at the end of December. No snow at the end of Jan is less common, but by no means unprecedented, and may or may not be followed by a big dump in Feb/Mar!
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby prog99 » Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:14 pm

Yes, its looking like that blocking high is sloping off to be replaced by stormier conditions.
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby Caberfeidh » Sat Jan 29, 2022 2:46 pm

A good long freeze of very low temperatures for a long time seems to only come around every ten years or so. The last long term deep freeze I remember were two consecutive winters of 2008-9 and 2009-10. Late 2010 I bought very expensive Norwegian snowshoes with built-in crampons and we have not had decent conditions since! The big waterfalls at Steall and behind the Drovers' Inn at Inverarnan seem to only solidify enough to allow climbing every ten years or so. Given that timescale, we should be due a big freeze one of these years soon. February seems to be the start of real winter mountaineering season in Scotland, for all we get enticing glimpses of snow and ice in November, it usually thaws and is disappointingly wet and mild until February but can last well into May.

Loch Etchachan, Cairngorms in May..jpg
Loch Etchachan, May.
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby Scraggygoat » Sat Jan 29, 2022 3:03 pm

Last winter was exceptional, only most of us didn’t get to sample it due to lock down. Highland friends are slowly showing photos of week after week of fantastic ski touring, jaunts across the Cullin ridge on very good snow, and Fort William residents are suggesting the Ben was probably in the best nick for at least a decade.
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby Caberfeidh » Sat Jan 29, 2022 3:58 pm

Oh, and with an ice axe and crampons should come a helmet. If it is cold and icy enough to need the ice axe and crampons, then it is cold and icy enough to put you in danger from slips and smacking your head off a rock/lump of ice/frozen ground. Helmets are not too expensive these days, even just a generic snowsports helmet will do.

Snowshoes05.jpg
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Re: "Warm" winters

Postby prog99 » Sun Jan 30, 2022 5:31 pm

Might find this informative post from the lochaber avalanche forecaster interesting.

http://lochaberblog.sais.gov.uk/2022/01/dry-janaury/
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