Finally a (brief) clearing!
16th January 2023
It was another cloudy day on the summit of Aonach Mor. The summits (or at least the ones I am on) just seem to want to hold on to the cloud at the moment. I decided to head over the Aonach Mor/Beag col anyway. Shortly after getting there the weather rewarded my persistence; the clouds parted, visibility increased, and the sun came out. I was able to see evidence of a cornice triggered avalanche on an East aspect, the sorted of thing I had been thinking would have occurred, but had failed to observe due to the poor visibility. Then ten minutes later, as quickly as they had parted the clouds rolled back in, and normal poor visibility returned.
A cold night last night with the summit temperature getting down to minus 10.9 degrees Celsius. This is pretty rare, I think you would have to go back to February 2021 to see summit temperatures this low. The cold temperatures are maintaining instabilities in the snow pack, and with temperatures forecast to remain low for the next few days little stabilisation is expected.
The cornices at the top of Aonach Mor today. These were noticeable bigger than they had been before the weekend, see photo below taken in the same spot in similar light conditions on Friday. Most of this growth would have occurred during the rest of Friday and Saturday as there was not much snow fall/movement on Sunday.
The same location four days ago.
The North East face of Aonach Beag. There looked to be a bit of ice about.
Looking down on debris from recent (last 48 hours or so) avalanche.
Cornices catching a bit of sunlight in a brief clear spell of about 10 minutes. A section of the crown wall from the avalanche shown in the previous shot can be seen in the closest area of sunshine below the cornice.
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