Alan Kimber's website has a nice photograph of the upper reaches of Observatory Gully, which was taken yesterday. Not quite 2008, but it's looking pretty decent up there, and there's more forecast.

The figure in the photograph is heading directly for the deepest snow on the hill, just as the gully narrows to the left of the rocky outcrop (at Tower Scoop). I'd imagine that it's somewhere in the region of 20 metres deep there at present.

Anyone know the average temperature for night and day at Aonach Mor weather station. My guess it is around minus 2. How does it compare to recent years ? I was checking daily and it rearely got above freezing for any lenght of time. Will this constant cold temperature help to firm up the survival sights.

Firefly - the picture attached was taken on the 1st of April this year, looking up "West Gully", which is in the lower corrie of GCM. The visibility was pretty poor that day, but comparing it to the 13th of May 2008 picture, the cover and depth was less than the 2008 picture from May. I guess it remains to be seen if the recent snowfalls are enough to add the depth to surpass the 2008 picture. I suspect not.

I am hoping to get in there again at some point over the next couple of weekends, so will get more pictures then (weather allowing!).

Attachments: braeriach_010412_8.jpg (127kB)  

I've no idea about the mean temperature over the course of a year (if that's what you mean) on Aonach Mor, but I'm pretty certain it's a good deal above freezing. During the time of the observatory on Ben Nevis (1883-1904) the mean temperature was just below 0deg Celcius over the piece. This was towards the end of a period characterised by snowier winters (and therefore more than likely lower temperatures) on the Scottish mountains*.

If I had to guess at the mean temperature on top of Aonach Mor over the course of the year then I'd be surprised if it were much below 5deg Celcius. If someone fancies a project of calculating the mean maximum and minimum temperatures over the course of the year then it is possible to work it out. I don't know how much faith I've got in the readings, though, as the station is prone to being a bit skittish!

* - Cool Britannia



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 13.51hrs Tue 1 May 12 by firefly.

Thanks Iain for the info.I did actually mean to say the figure for April. I do daily look at the readings at Aonach mor and i rarely saw the figure above freezing during April. As you say the readings can be a bit suspect as have shown today. 7 centigrade one hour and back down to near freezing an hour later.

Hi, has anybody got an idea of how much snow there might be up in the Dubh Loch area? I'm heading up there for a camp this Friday and thinking about bringing the skis with me. Snowline around that area and Lochnagar would be useful. Any info would be appreciated.
Planning a tour in the Cairngorms on Monday so I'm looking forward to that anyway!

I was on Lochnagar yesterday afternoon, from the Glen Muick car park. I put the skis on at about 800m, but gave up on the plateau above the Meikle Pap col in a complete white out. There's really good cover above 850-900m, so touring high up should be fine.

Thanks Scomuir, was hoping to assess some gullys up there. But a skin out onto the plateau would be fine too. Never been up the Dubh Loch before, just Lochnagar and Black Spout. Couple of hikers had told me that there could be good descents to be had in the Corrie. Had a brief look on an OS map today and there looks like there could be a few possibilities depending on snow level.

The left hand branch of Black Spout would be your only "safe" bet, and by "safe" I mean likely to have enough snow in it. The main branch definitely won't have enough.

My intention yesterday was to see if anything was possible in the southern sector of the main corrie, but unfortunately, the visibility was too poor to see anything at all. For all I know it could have been excellent! It may be possible to tour from the top of the Dubh Loch round to Lochnagar, but I couldn't say for certain.

I know the question was asked about Aonach Mor, but to give you an idea for the period 1990 to end 1995 the mean annual temperature on CairnGorm Summit was +0.5°c. June, July, August, September and October have +ve temps, all other months negative avg temperature.

I'm surprised at that figure, Alan. Although there's no doubt that the Cairngorms are colder generally than the mountains of Lochaber, 0.5deg C seems a little low for the mean annual temperature. I would be interested to know where theses figures came from, if you could oblige. Perhaps the figure of 5deg C for Aonach Mor was too high!

There is a small plague on the Heriot Watt AWS with the 1990-95 data, broken down by month, then the 5 year average of the annual mean temperature.

Just had a look and there is a graphic of it on the website: [cairngormweather.eps.hw.ac.uk]

I would imagine from the remote weather station on the summit operated by the Physics department at Heriot-Watt.

[cairngormweather.eps.hw.ac.uk]

Specifically

[cairngormweather.eps.hw.ac.uk]

When I did my geography O'level back in the 1980's we where told that a two degree drop in temperatures in Scotland would result in the return of a permanent ice cap.

Mean annual temp on ben nevis is just below 0c according to met office. Shetland has a annual mean of around 7c so 5c on aonach mor sound a bit high.
[www.metoffice.gov.uk]

Yes, I'm sure in an old copy of Guiness book of records I had that it said Braemar was the coldest place (as in where folk live) in Britain with an average temp of 6c or so. Then, when I went on a distillery tour at Dalwhinnie last year the woman said that Dalwhinnie was the coldest place in Britain and the average is 5c, the same as Iceland, or so she said. 5c seems way too high for Aonoch Moor, a quick Google search of 'Yearly Average Temperature Ben Nevis' brought me to this: "One hundred years ago the former observatory recorded the weather patterns every day of the year, they noted that the annual average temperature at the summit was -0.5c (31.4f), with the July average at +5c (41.1f)."