Sunny Monday
8th April 2024
It was a pleasant sunny day in the Cairngorms today. The strong winds which were a major feature of the weather over the weekend finally started to ease. Summit temperatures were got down to amount -2.5°C overnight before rising above freezing during the day. This mean that the snowpack was pretty hard and icy first thing, but tended to soften through the day, particularly in locations exposed the sunshine.
A significant change in the weather expected tomorrow with heavy snow and a strengthening wind. Another return to winter in what feels like it has been a very up and down season.
The view into Coire an Lochan from the ski road. Snow cover looked very similar to yesterday.
The snow on a easy angled North-West facing aspect was very firm this morning after the cooler overnight conditions. It had started to soften when I can back down that way a couple of hours later.
However, on an Eastlery aspect there was a small amount of fresh snow which was softening early on in the warm sunshine.
There has been a trace amount of fresh snow over the past few days. Many areas have been blow clear in the strong winds, but there were a few locations, such as behind this fence, which caught the fresh snow.
The East side of Cairngorm with Ben MacDui just visible behind and to the left.
Beinn Mheadhoin
Looking over to the expanse of Beinn a Bhuird.
Looking North from Cnap Coire na Spreidhe.
Strath Nethy and Bynack Mor. Not much snow down in the Strath, but some good glacial landforms. Does anyone know how the obvious bench which runs along the far side of the Strath was formed?
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Roger
8th April 2024 6:38 pm
This debris landform in Strath Nethy, Cairngorms (Scotland) was categorized by Sisson (1979, p. 79) as a ‘boulder deposit associated with former snow beds’. Sandeman & Ballantyne (1996, p. 140) termed it a ‘talus rock glacier’, but recognized that sliding failures from the granite cliffs upslope provided much of the debris. The Cairngorm rock glaciers are currently the subject of a cosmogenic isotope surface-exposure dating programme (C.K. Ballantyne pers. comm. 2007).
ncairngormsadmin
9th April 2024 2:22 pm
Thanks for the information Roger, very interesting. The more I look at the hills the more I see features that have some form of glacial origin, but I could not explain how they are actually formed, and why they are where they are.