It just had to happen this year.

Mega cold winter and massive energy costs....

Great start for the season so far. Surely can’t be far off to get things going at the lecht?!

An interesting read from Netweather - signals strongly favour Northern Blocking into December:

[www.netweather.tv] .

While higher than average sea surface temperatures can moderate the cold particularly near the coast, with the right wind direction and some instability with cold air aloft the temperature contrast can help drive convection leading to more snowfall potential on hills getting onshore winds.

NE winds could thus see convective streamers set up off the Moray Firth and push into the Northern Cairngorms for example.

Met Office video showing how various models are going for cooler conditions as high pressure takes control of our weather from the weekend, but looks like a settled and dry spell coming up.

This is definitely worthy of a post here - the mythical low pressure triple stack, the synoptics that launched the 2001 season, delivered feet of snow from a slow moving occlusion in Aviemore in 2010!






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Big uncertainty on wind speeds end of the week into weekend, as we could be in the middle of large and deep low pressure - anything from light and variable to Storm Force! Detail is lacking the bigger picture is looking much more promising, unsettled and cool to cold.

Let’s hope there’s not a final sucker punch to the remaining West Coast and CairnGorm base.





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 21.53hrs Mon 19 Feb 24 by winterhighland.

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Don't know how these ski centres survive?
The Lecht must be on the way out..

It has to be said, but the continued efforts of Scottish ski resorts to provide snow sports in the face of increasingly milder climatic conditions seems futile. There seems to be a stubborn refusal to accept that the dream of operating a thriving ski industry in Scotland is over and only highlights the growing disconnect between the industry's aspirations and the stark environmental reality unfolding before them.

Is there a possibility that Glencoe and Cairngorm can perhaps survive with the changing climate.
The others don't appear to have the financial capacity to survive.
Their snow record is also pretty poor unfortunately!

The long running situation with the funicular and lack of non surface uplift to the top on CairnGorm makes things seem worse than comparable seasons. There has been months of lift served sliding lost this season on CairnGorm.

Then there is Nevis Range, who have at various points this season probably had more snow than the other four added together. Lets be clear, Nevis has achieved what it set out to do - brass neck out the season without opening.