Cold and Crisp to End 2022
31st December 2022
It was a nice cold clear crisp day to end 2022. The snowpack today very much showed the effects of yesterdays weather. During yesterday afternoon the freezing level briefly rose to around the level of the highest summits, possibly accompanied by some freezing rain. The wind also rose significantly. With the return to colder conditions today, the snowpack had formed a hard and icy crust. There had been a dusting of fresh snow, but deposits were very shallow. Above 1000 metres there was evidence of significant wind redistribution of the snowpack (sastrugi). The combination of wind redistribution and rising temperatures produced a period of instability yesterday afternoon. I saw evidence of a with a number of small to medium sized avalanches which occurred in Coire an Lochan during this period. It looked like many of these had be triggered by collapsing cornices.
Comments on this post
Got something to say? Leave a comment