Fresh Snow.
16th March 2026
Snow showers overnight and during the morning topped the snowpack up further. The past few days have been pretty wet in Lochaber with the SEPA gauge in Glen Nevis recording over 60mm of rain since midday on Thursday. On the hill the precipitation total will probably have been greater with almost all the precipitation falling as snow at higher levels. In a cold and calm environment this amount of precipitation would result a uniform covering of about 60cm of fresh snow. However, the hills of Lochaber are not calm, and there has been a lot of drifting. Many areas are scoured, but there is a load of fresh snow on higher North to East aspects. Cornices above these aspects have grown even further. With the temperature rising and rainfall forecast overnight and through tomorrow, cornice collapse and avalanche activity is expected.
There were some heavy snow showers during the morning. It was quite wild as I passed the parked piste machine by the top station.
A few minutes after the previous photo was taken it had cleared up temporarily. There had been a fair bit of fresh snow and the snow fences that run up the hill such as photographed here had done a good job of catching the fresh snow.
Cornice collapse below my ski. There was a few little cornice sections in the drifts that had formed behind the fences, and these proved prone to collapse when approached. There are some large cornices present in Lochaber at the moment, and I suspect like this one they would be prone to collapse.
Looking down the Goose during a clear spell. Some areas such as this have caught a lot of snow in the past few days. On other windward aspects the snowpack is very shallow and/or icy.
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