OK, this is just one distant chart from a suite of some 20 ensemble members from the GFS model, but it’s something pretty special none the less. Complete reversal of the mid latitude zonal winds, Easterly from one side of the chart to the other screaming across the UK.

If such a scenario were to happen it wouldn’t so much be weather, more a complete breakdown of the fundamental laws of physics! Did the Earth’s direction of rotation change?

Just how much snow is on the White Lady, a few feet, six feet, 10 feet even? Here’s a couple of photos of the Funicular from traditional line onto the White Lady (now skiers right of the tunnel) from Feb 2009 and Monday 18th Jan 2010.

Funicular from White Lady 2009, crossing the M1 SideTrack - White Lady underpass.

Funicular crosses the M1 SideTrack - White Lady underpass on Monday 19th Jan 2010.

With the stormy conditions of mid-week due to ease up on Friday morning to give us a weekend with light winds and great snow cover in the East and fresh snow forecast for the early part of Friday, this would be a good weekend to make a weekend of it.

Aviemore is filling up, so if you have a car and wish to have the flexibility to consider taking in another area, we’ve had a sniff around for some cracking offers in other villages in Strathspey for the weekend.

Head South in the Strath for the option of taking in Nevis Range one day. Newtonmore is the ideal base for splitting a weekend between CairnGorm and Nevis Range, or for simply getting a bit more for your £s for a weekend at CairnGorm.

• Bavil Sport Hotel, Newtonmore. Singles from £29.  Twins and Doubles from £39 inc breakfast.
• Highlander Hotel, Newtonmore. Singles from £30. Twins and Doubles from £44 inc breakfast.

Head North in Strathspey to be situated ideally for picking either CairnGorm Mountain or the Lecht.

• Ben Mhor Hotel, Grantown. Singles from £40. Doubles from £50. Family Room (2+2) from £65.
• Ravenscourt House, Grantown. A bit of 4* luxury from just £49.50 for a twin.

Glenshee

For Glenshee, the village of Kirkmichael is often overlooked as a location, but the Kirkmichael Hotel is offering single rooms from £30 for Saturday night and a Family Room (2A +2C) from £70.

Out West

In the West the Ballachulish Hotel lies plumb in the middle between Nevis Range and Glencoe and is offering twin and double rooms from £69. Also in Ballachulish is Fern Villa,  a small family run 3* Guest House offering rooms from £42.

Throwing everything else at the CairnGorm Ski Road to deal with the effects of almost a week of Southerly gales with cold temperatures after almost 2 metres of snow fall since Christmas.

One of the Glencoe webcams had a bit of an oops at the weekend and the SSC Hut cams are now down to allow them to be installed permanently now that the SSC Hut is in regular use. The cams should be back up online by or during the early part of next week. The Access2200 camera remains operational providing a view of the Plateau, Mid Mountain, Main Basin and Rannoch Glades.

The Mountain Spirit webcam in Aviemore has suffered a technical problem that has not responded to rebooting the system and a site visit is planned for Thursday to give it a proverbial kick.

While a thaw is now affecting many lower parts of Scotland there is certainly no thaw in the hills and only the slightest one away from Coastal areas.

The blanket of snow outside remains complete here next to the centre of Inverness, the street  a tarmac free zone since before Christmas Eve. Wednesday morning saw the snow notch up another milestone, 4 weeks of consecutive snow lie at not quite 10m ASL in Inverness.

Stop and think about that, it’s really quite hard to grasp in a way, but when the slow thaw becomes a faster thaw and eventually the snow is gone from low ground, it’s actually going to seem kinda weird.  The lack of wind for the main part of this cold spell prevented the spell reaching the severity of the ‘79 and it’s still far to early to tell if the winter will go the way of a 1963. Never the less it has been a remarkable spell of weather, the three weeks of ever improving conditions that by Friday 8th had moved from epic to pretty much historical on CairnGorm Mountain had been achieved without a day lost to weather.

How that has changed since the weekend, ferocious winds coupled with 185cm of straight down snow fall still lying loose and unconsolidated means the drifting and extent of the snow redistribution on CairnGorm Mountain has been simply phenomenal, with long stretches of the down road from Coire Cas under 13ft of snow. The depth may not beat any Ski Road records, but the sheer extent of the road under such depths seems to be up there, with even the snowblower overwhelmed. Such drifting has not been restricted to the high mountains, above about 1000ft (lower in places) the snow is still loose to drift with all roads across the Dava Moor choked with snow this evening and traffic on the A9 being convoyed over Drumochter at times during Wednesday.

Can anoyone remember a longer spell of low level snow in the Inverness Area?

Though cloud is now coming over and there’s been the odd flurry this afternoon, much of Wednesday was an amazing winter’s day with blazing sunshine, with cold crisp snow on the ground and a lunch time temperature of -5c in the city centre of Inverness.

Today marks the 21st day, 3 full weeks, of lying snow at just 15m above sea level near to the city centre in Inverness. While people can remember deeper snow or colder temperatures what is setting this cold spell apart is it’s persistence.

If the forecast models are correct, we should pass the one month of lying snow in Inverness mark next week, I can’t recall snow lying so long at such low levels with no significant thaw? Tarmac has not been seen on my street since before Christmas, when people were wondering could the snow possibly hang around long enough for a White Christmas?

Inverness was one of those places that caught some snow showers on Christmas Day itself, making it truly a White Christmas in every sense.  A robin is sitting hopefully out the back for more bread.

Glencoe is now open for the 2010 season with the first tracks getting laid down in 6 inches of fresh that fell over the weekend under perfect bluebird conditions. A day some doubters kept saying could never come has arrived, Scotland has a full house of ski areas open and what’s more it’s been achieved before Hogmanay, that in itself is something quite special as it’s more often or not into January before the West Coast can get up and running.

On Tuesday afternoon the fun came to a premature and frustrating end thanks to one moment of careless disregard for the uplift infrastructure and fellow snow riders on CairnGorm’s Coire Cas.

A rider jumped off the Cas Tow just before a Tower throwing the T-bar away, which rebounded into the tower, derailing the rope and damaging the sheave assembly on the tower. This would be a lengthy stoppage at the best of times, but with dusk rapidly enveloping the mountain it meant the end of play and no last run for those waiting in the Cas queue.

Such stoppages by day ruin the uplift capacity, create queues and detract from everyone’s day, thus it’s everyones job to do their bit to help keep the lifts turning.

DON’Ts:

• Don’t use lifts that are unsuitable for your ability level, consider the difficulty of terrain that surface tows pass through.
• Don’t practice on ski tows and pomas that are not intended for novices, they are harder to ride and falls can cause lengthy stoppages (Pomas are particularly vulnerable to derailments due to miss-loads).
• Don’t jump of moving T-bars mid-line (esp just before towers!).
• Don’t get on a lift without knowing how to get off! It’s your responsibility to know how to ride a lift safely, if in doubt about any aspect of a given lift please ASK or take a lesson.

DO’s:

• DO stay under the tow line on surface lifts. This is CRITICAL to preventing derailments in high winds, do NOT drift outwards with the wind.
• DO get off the lift at the correct point using the correct unload procedure for that lift.
• DO pair up on T-bars. One skier + one boarder is more stable than one single boarder or two boarders, esp for inexperienced riders. (Shout for singles).

BULL WHEEL UNLOADING:

• The majority of T-bars in Scotland are designed for bullwheel unloading. Where this system is in use there will be a flat get off area underneath the bullwheel.
• Decide which person will deal with the T-bar, the other person should push off on arrival to the unload area so not to obstruct the person dealing with the T-bar.
• Keep hold of the T-bar as the springbox goes round the bullwheel and until the T-bar has fully retracted (or as close to fully as possible) before letting go.
• Do not drop T-bars in the snow or throw them at the bullwheel mast, the swinging bar could cause serious injury to yourself or others and potentially severe damage to the lift resulting in a major stoppage.
• Tows are fitted with Emergency Stop Buttons at the Top Station. In the event of accident or thrown T-bar going over the line, don’t be afraid to use them - a controlled stop is a quicker fix than an uncontrolled one!

QUEUING ETIQUTE:

• Queuing is an art form here, not fastest, fittest or biggest first!
• Form multiple short queues, long windy queues waste valuable skiing space.
• As the first queue clears into the lift loading area, the second queue should move forward to take it’s place, the first person in the 2nd queue joining onto the end of the 1st. Repeat as needed.

SPREAD THE WORD…. Many skiers and boarders may be relatively unfamiliar with surface lifts and particularly the common bullwheel unloading uses on many T-bars here, similarly to the unique Scottish queuing method. Everyone can help educate other users here, politely and courteously point out some of the oddities of Scottish skiing that help everything go smoothly.

A second absolutely full house in Inverness’ Eden Court cinema with a 138 people watching Warren Miller’s Dynasty on the 15th. It’s been fantastic for Winterhighland being able to take the film to extra screenings that wouldn’t be possible within the confines of the UK tour, with a great turnout at all the showings and a fantastic party atmosphere.

Many £100s of free gear given away during the Intermission give-aways, if you missed out on something, better luck next year.

A big thank you to everyone who came along each night, I know the weather wasn’t exactly the best on some of the nights!! Also we’ve raised a bit over £400 for Disability Snowsports UK across the five screenings put on by Winterhighland, a very very big thank you and if you want to help Winterhighland raise even more money for a brilliant cause, look out for full details of the 2010 White Lady Challenge on CairnGorm Mountain, provisionally the final Sat of Feb and 1st Monday of March.

See you on the hills….