Wednesday 3rd February will mark another significant milestone in winter 2009/10, seven weeks of consecutive snow lie at even relatively low altitudes in places such as Aviemore. Indeed even here in Central Inverness, you need to go back the same 7 weeks to find a time when the immediate surrounds has been completely snow free and there is a light dusting of fresh this evening as well.

At least some patches of snow on the ground for 7 weeks at ~10m above sea level in Inverness… 7 days of snow lie is quite rare consecutively for low levels!

It’s now officially the coldest December and January period for Scotland as a whole since Scotland wide records begun in 1914. What about the Coldest Winter? Well we’re still a good bit short of the coldest recorded 2 month period and February would need to make the festive period look quite benign to get close the coldest winter record.

However, could this be the fabled Hale Winter everyone was talking about 2 or 3 years ago?

Fresh Snow in Aviemore.