The warm weather of the last few days has reduced the snow on Helvellyn dramatically. Virtually nothing left on the NE face, but thanks to The Lake District Walker website we can catch a glimpse of the snow at the head of Brown Cove.
[thelakedistrictwalker.co.uk]

Still a wee bit of this left to melt, so if the weather that's forecast to arrive ends up at the Lake Distruct then we could see a melt date of mid May. Perhaps later.

Diligent searching and a wide range of contacts does sometimes pay dividends! Ben Rawson was up on Bleaklow/Shelf Moor on the 28th April and just happened upon the snow that I photographed on the 21st April. [www.flickr.com]

Still waiting on a rough estimate of the size of this snow, but by the look of the depth it looks very much like it would have made the start of May. Might still be there, and I suspect it's the last in the Peak District.

Still about 8 patches of snow left on the west side of Great Whernside, Wharfedale, Yorkshire Dales on Thursday afternoon. I would estimate they could last up to one more week.

I was in Snowdonia earlier this week and saw a few snowpatches whilst walking. The weather on Sunday April 29th was very cold (3c with sleet at an altitude of 200m in the valleys) with high precipitation which almost certainly fell as snow higher up, so the patches I saw could well be new snowfall.

The first image is Carnedd Moel Siabod from the west. The second image is Snowdon and Cwm Dyli from the east. The third image is Glyder Fawr from the south. All images were taken on Monday April 30th.

I spent Wednesday May 2nd walking in the Yorshire Dales, but I didn't see any snowpatches - I wasn't really in the right area though (Malham Tarn) and the cloudbase was pretty low so I couldn't see Great Whernside or Pen-y-ghent.

Attachments: IMG_4993.jpg (309kB)   IMG_5001.jpg (372kB)   IMG_5002.jpg (400kB)  

Considering there are a few snowflakes falling here, below 300m, I imagine that any showers that do fall further north and higher up might actually be substantial and aid the survival. Some snow is also forecast on Monday, however it'll most likely turn to rain at all levels which can't be great.

Good stuff Eddie.

Interesting the names of some of the Welsh mountains. Some of the meanings are virtually identical to ones in Scotland, showing the common ancestry of the two languages. This despite the fact they've been separated for thousands of years. The word Fawr (as in Glyder Fawr, pronounced VOWr) in Welsh is a mutated form of mawr, meaning large or big. The gaelic equivalent is mor (MORE), which means the same thing and is pronounced very similarly.

The same is true for the other Glyder (Glyder Fach, pronounched VAch). This is the 'small' Glyder (i.e. bach), very similar to gaelic beag, meaning the same thing.

Moel is also very similar to gaelic maol, both meaning a bald or bare hill.

Fascinating stuff!



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 12.03hrs Sat 5 May 12 by firefly.

4 patches on Helvellyn 6 May biggest Browncove should be safe for another week

Helvellyn's Brown Cove still holding snow, as of yesterday. The patch in the photo here [www.flickr.com] is almost certainly one of the last (if not THE last) in the Lakes. Be interesting to see of the Whernside snow outlasts this.

Cross Fell snows all gone. Paul Crabtree saw none on the 4th May, but reckons all had gone by the 30th April. We've now exceeded last year's melt date for England (7th May at Great End).

Firefly, interested in your definition of surviving snow patches, to my ming the Brown Cove patch is the only true long lasting surviving patch in England, having been in existence since the start of the winter in November, however I would say any patches now remaining in the pennines should not be counted as a survival as the snow which fell to create them only came in mid april, at the beginning of april the pennine patches had all gone hadn't they? Same with Snowdonia, so these patches are only a month old compared to 6 or 7 months of the Brown Cove patch?

DrHosking, since there are no rules on the subject then there is no definite answer to your question.

The snow that fell on the night and morning of 3 and 4 April, and traces of which may yet be present in the Yorkshire Dales, have now been around for over a month. It is by chance that the Dales and the Peak District benefitted greatly from the snow that piled in from the North Sea, while the Lakes got only a little. Nevertheless, the snow that fell has to be counted in the overall computation, since it would have been counted had it fallen farther west.

When we write the paper each year we are primarily concerned with the melt date, and not how long each patch survives in terms of overall duration. Let us say that the Brown Cove patch is outlasted by the Whernside by a week. To ignore this on the grounds that the snow has only been around for a month as opposed to Brown Cove's 6 months would not be accurate. The best thing to do in such circumstances is to record it for posterity.

I agree that the Brown Cove patch is far more a 'long-lying' one, but such are the vagaries of the British climate that sometimes patches will last longer in unusual places. Our job is to but record them!



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 17.29hrs Mon 7 May 12 by firefly.

Surely a snow patch, is simply a patch of snow. It doesnt matter if its been there 1 week or 1 year!!!

Probably stupid question. So when does it stop being a patch? if fresh snow joins up the patches does it get recorded as over and start recording when it splits again?

I'm not 100% sure if I know what you mean. However, I assume you mean in spring if a fresh spell of snow covers two patches that hitherto were conjoined? In such circumstances as this I would be inclined to record the split the last time it happens. Bear in mind this can happen several times in winter and spring, given the thawing and subsequent fresh snow that occurs.

From yesterday on Helvellyn, just before it started snowing

Attachments: browncove.jpg (41kB)  

Excellent, snick. Did you take this yourself? Any other snow about, or was this all of it?