The Webcam pages for the Glencoe, CairnGorm, Loch Morlich and Aviemore Winterhighland Webcams has had a small upgrade that makes it much easier to view the older images.

A ‘lightbox’ pop up has been added that enables viewers to toggle through 6 images from the last hour and/or the last 15 hourly images from each camera. So if you’ve just got in from work to see dusk on the camera you can view an hourly snapshot of the whole day with ease.

Viewing today

Sheiling AWS down to remove sticking wind vane.

Recently the Sheiling Tow AWS had been reporting an unusually high frequency of suspected anemometer icing when the SSC Hut and Loch Morlich weather stations were not. An inspection of the weather station on my last visit to the mountain showed that the anemometer cups were no longer spinning freely and was sometimes snagging the wind vane housing - giving the anemometer an abnormally high resistance to be overcome before the cups would spin, greatly increasing the threshold wind at which an actual wind speed would be reported.

Two wind vanes sitting in the snow

The anemometer was swapped out on Saturday (13th March) and replaced by a brand new one. This is not permanently installed until it’s determined if the old one is fixable, reason being not wanting to cut the long wind vane cable to the length needed for this installation unnecessarily as it could render the vane useless for other sites.

Unfortunately the long cable being bundled up is picking up electrical interference, which has been giving some nonsense wind speed readings  on Saturday evening. If gust speed or current wind speed is reported far in excess of other recent speeds or those from other AWS’s on the mountain, it is likely to be false. Will try and fix the Sheilings own anemometer and if this is not possible will shorten the cable and permanently install the new one.

Sheiling AWS back in place as skiers head for home on the Carpark Run late Saturday afternoon.

After a trial with a laptop for a camera server a couple of weeks ago it was decided to install a permanent webcam at the top of the Main Basin T-bar, just short of the Summit of Meall a’ Bhuiridh itself. The trial being followed by the ‘big snowstorm’ and resultant road issues  on the planned installation day, meant a longer delay in installing a permanent camera than planned, but this was undertaken today (Friday).

Summit Webcam at Glencoe

The Live Image can be viewed at http://www.winterhighland.info/cams/glencoe .

I’d also like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Nigel and the entire fantastic team at the Crianlarich Hotel where I spent Thursday night for their hospitality and friendly service. Their Skier Special provides simply amazing value, £25b&b per night for a single or £40 for a twin/double and if you stay 3 nights you get a 4th on the hotel.

Fantastic breakfasts, will keep you going all day, from the traditional full fry up, to smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, to healthier options of fruit juice, fresh fruit etc. Excellent evening meals too, served in the bar or informal lounge with two massive wood burners at either end. Also have a drying room (much need after Thursday afternoon lugging stuff up the hill in preparation for Friday…)

See www.crianlarich-hotel.co.uk .

GPRS Issues affecting our CairnGorm and Glencoe on mountain cameras

There continues to be intermittent but regular service interruptions to Vodafone’s data service in some rural parts of the Highlands. Glencoe staff report regular occurrences where connections are possible but no data throughput is available - this has caused several spells of down time to the cameras, but not always at the same time. It appears that some of the cameras might be able to intermittently pick up more distant masts.

There is also a recurring issue with the Meall a’ Bhuachaille mast above Glenmore that serves CairnGorm. The root of this problem is thought to be weather related but the word from Vodafone is that engineering staff have not been able to carry out work on some of the high level rural masts due to access issues and depth of snow cover.

Unfortunately there is a data link issue with the Winterhighland SSC Hut webcams and both the Sheiling and SSC Hut weather stations. The GPRS router dropped out after earlier connection issues that are likely to have been down to the sheer level of usage of the mobile network in the area today.

This has happened before during very busy periods in Aviemore and on the mountain, there is only a finite amount of capacity on the Meall a’ Bhuachaille mast and voice calls and sms services take priority over data if the need arises. The system auto reboots overnight and will hopefully come back up on it’s own, should the problem persist a site visit will be undertaken on Saturday (oh the pain I hear you say) to attempt a manual restart of the camera system.

Unfortunately the Glencoe webcams are off-line this weekend. This is due to a recurring hardware problem affecting communications, replacement parts are due to arrive on 1st Feb and it is hoped to have the Access Cam and SSC Hut cams back online by the middle of next week, in plenty time for the following weekend.

Was doing some work on Wed afternoon on the Glencoe Webcams and network. The SSC Hut computer is back online, but was brought back up too late to take any photos (as it was dark), but should be taking images from first light Thursday (fingers crossed!).

The Access 2200ft Camera is being re-configured to work with a different network configuration and it’s hoped to have it back on the mountain and updating within the next couple of weeks, all being well sooner.

A blustery and snowy Autumn day at Glencoe on Friday, which wasn’t the best for lugging computer equipment to 2800ft on a Scottish Mountain. www.winterhighland.info/cams/glencoe .

Snow starting to lie to the top of the Access.

Thanks to  the Scottish Ski Club (for their support and hosting the kit ),  the staff at Glencoe for their assistance today and to those who have generously contributed to the Winterhighland cause this autumn, we now have two new Winterhighland Webcams up and running at the Glencoe Scottish Ski Club Hut on Meall a’ Bhuiridh.

For now this is a very temporary installation that will be made more permanent in due course. With snow on the ground and more forecast the mission was to get some webcams to let people see the weather and snow asap. So with the wind forecast markedly improving for Friday with Thursday’s updated forecasts, after a couple of phone calls, a computer system was hurriedly set up  and a Vodafone usb dongle bought shortly before 7pm, once some frantic googling appeared to confirm ways existed to get it to fire up under Xubuntu linux on a ancient P3 with 256mb of RAM!

Here comes the computer on it's way up the Cliffhanger Chairlift on Friday afternoon.

The equipment and that necessary to set-up the gear up and get it on-line were carried up on the Access and Cliffhanger Chair, and lugged over the Plateau. The views currently on offer are dictated by proximity to power and the need to keep the cameras close to the computer, a new power supply and usb extender cables will be used when the system is permanently installed, this will provide an improved view up to the Top Tows, plus allow a camera to be higher up looking down over the Canyon to the Wall. There is also the  possibility of sitting the cameras at the other side of the hut, looking down the Cliffy line and over the upper part of Mugs Alley (or indeed an additional camera for this), so let us know what view you’d prefer and this will guide the final placement.

Webcam looking out the gable end of the SSC Hut.

Currently at Loch Morlich Water Sports to complete the re-installation of the AWS and level the webcam, so fortunately we can see not the mountains this lunchtime!

The thermometer and hydrometer are now housed in a radiation screen which should solve the issue of sudden and unrealistic spikes in temperature when the sun comes out at certain times of day.

The webcam has been levelled (easier when there is something to see!) and is now also uploading a short video clip every 15minutes. This clip will be useful for gauging the conditions on the Loch as well as over the mountain tops, where scudding clouds give a clear indication of very high wind speeds.

If you find the existing Winterhighland webcams useful and can afford to do so, perhaps  you would like to consider a donation or voluntary  subscription to help secure continued expansion  and operation of Winterhighland’s  webcam and weather station network?

www.winterhighland.info/support

Brrr, canoeists brave a chilly autumn morning on Loch Morlich.

A chilly, damp and misty Wednesday morning was spent reinstalling the Automatic Weather Station at Loch Morlich Water Sports which was off-line due to renovations on the outside of the Boathouse during late October. The anemometer and rain gauge have been mounted above the roof-line to improve exposure.

The temperature sensor is currently un-screened and will read several degrees too high mid-morning in sunny weather , this will be rectified asap (awaiting parts for the radiation screen).

Where? The visibility worsened while installing the webcam!

This will be the first full winter for this AWS being on-line and it will be fascinating to see how night time temperatures differ from both the mountain and Aviemore in the sheltered location of Glenmore which is surrounded by higher ground on all sides with only a couple of relatively narrow openings - helping to pool cold air.

Also installed was the new Loch Morlich Web Cam which provides a view of CairnGorm Mountain from the Boathouse. Looking over the Beach and Eastern end of the Loch this cam gives a wide view over the Windy Ridge, Coire Cas, Coire an t-Sneachda and Coire an Lochain.

This webcam is infra red sensitive which means it is able to pick up the very first hint of light as dawn approaches and as such will start updating 1 hour before sunrise so will prove useful in the depths of winter when the days are shortest for getting an earlier sneak preview of what the weather’s doing / done overnight. The camera can’t ’see’ in the dark, thus does need a bit of light, so on particularly gloomy overcast mornings it may take a little bit longer for scenery to become visible.

Loch Morlich AWS and Webcam.

Our Loch Morlich webcam updates every minute, so will be great for storm watching as the clouds and hopefully snow roll in over the mountains.

There is one unintended consequence of the cam’s IR sensitivity, in certain lighting conditions the Scots Pines appear purple!

The webcam and current weather can be viewed on the Loch Morlich Cam page at www.winterhighland.info/cams/cairngorm-mountain/morlich.php . As well as current weather, 5 minute reports for the last hour & hourly for the past 24 hours are provided in tabular format along with graphs showing air temperature and the 5 minute mean and gust wind speed over the past 48 hours.

Live Cam Image: