DREICH!!
28th January 2025
Very dreich and wet conditions in the glen this morning with no view of the mountains. Summit temperatures were forecast to be around -2/-3 degrees and a freezing level of around 800m so we expected to ascend into a dryer environment with precipitation falling as snow rather than rain. The temperature in the Cas Car Park registered +0.5 and the air temperature recorded at the first of our snow profile locations at 1150m was -0.5. That’s a 1 degree difference over an altitude gain of 600m. A very unusual and shallow ‘lapse rate’, presumably caused by saturated cloud mass over the Cairngorms.
A dreich outlook at the Cas Car Park. Here the temperature was +0.5 degrees and the snow was the consistency of soggy porridge….
Reasonable snow cover on Northern aspects, here at 1100m just above the Ptarmigan Building. It was however raining…
The riming on the snow fences at 1150 meters were dripping with water.
Our first snow profile location was close to the Cairngorm Summit Tor. We had been anticipating some evidence of fresh wind blown snow, on a South-East aspect with NNW winds. However, what we found was a rain impacted snow pack, then, with a minor drop in temperature the saturated surface of the snow pack had frozen to form a frozen rain crust on the surface. Our clothing and equipment was saturated. Rain briefly froze on the rucksack to form the conditions illustrated above……
Comments on this post
Gary Hodgson
28th January 2025 4:59 pm
Was up on the Fiacaill Coire Sneachda and plateau today. Bizarre conditions, as you say. We were expecting snow falling above 1000m but just freezing rain. We were coated in ice. Buckles on my rucsack frozen solid!
Thanks for all your reports.