Christmas Weather Outlook
 Walter The Weathergirl dons his festive Santa outfit and checks out the prospects for the festive mountain weather, and you know what, Christmas Day looks like a cracker (sorry...) :-)
Posted: 23 December 2005
by Walter the Weather Girl
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Weekend Weather 24/25
December '05
in association with GORE-TEX® fabrics
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Fact of the Week!
England only had seven officially white Christmases
in the entire 20th Century. That is a snowflake
fell on the rof of the London weather centre.
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Our regular Friday round-up
of what's in store for the weekend. Just check the links for
the relevant weather forecasts and if you want to know how
things look in a particular area right now, check out the
OM
web cams page for a selection
of hill cams. And whatever you do, have a good one.
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Metcheck
for good overviews of localised areas based on
a number of meterological models. Loads of quirky
options for stuff like rain forecasts plus offbeat,
leftfield weather generalisations. Get stuck in and
have a browse, there's a lot on this
site.
'Christmas Eve, Christmas Day
and Boxing Day will all be dominated by high
pressure and as each day progresses it is expected
to get progressively colder with increased amount
of frost by night ... while not a white Christmas
in terms of snowfall, it will be seasonal with
chilly temperatures and crisp days.' It may be
about to get very cold if winds shift to the
east...
You can check out individual
areas or dig a bit deeper for the
Mountain
Forecast page or
the Climbing
Forecast page.
The 7
Day charts give a
handy overview too.
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Mountain
Weather Information
Service has a
great downloadable mountain-specific
forecast for Eastern and Western
Highlands, Peak District and
Lakes in PDF format. Plus a Snowdonia
forecast. The Peak and Snowdonia forecasts are now
restricted to weekend forecasts and go ou ton
Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Cold, dry and crisp, maybe
the odd shower of rain or drizzle on Saturday but
mostly dry on Christmas Day itself which looks
superb with periods of sunshine and very good
visibility in most areas.
Check individual forecasts
for specific details.
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Met
Office For localised
five-day forecasts use this
page. Lots of severe weather
warnings this morning...
Saturday 'Many places dry. Some
rain across northeast Scotland.'
Sunday Dry, cold with sunny
spells.
Welsh Mountain Forecasts Useful
online forecasts covering the National Park areas of
Snowdonia
- and the Brecon
Beacons.
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BBC
Weather Site uses Met
Office data, but more user friendly. Just been revamped for
the summer, weird stuff but easy access to a lot more
information including rain forecasts, cloud, wind,
temperature, visibility etc. Nice. Localised forecasts
accessible from the same page.
Saturday 'Rain over N Scotland
will push south affecting parts of eastern Scotland later in
the day. Also some light rain or drizzle for a time over N
England and N Ireland. Otherwise dry with sunny spells.
Breezy in the northeast.'
Sunday 'Mainly dry with sunny
spells. Rather cloudy over southern England, possibly with
some showers in the southeast, where it will feel cold with
a brisk northeasterly wind. Temperatures around normal
elsewhere.'
BBC specific areas:
Fort
William / Kendal
/ Betws-y-Coed
/ Aviemore
/ Skipton
/ Glossop
(Peak) / Brecon
/ Milton
Keynes.
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Wasdaleweb
weather - Always worth a
loook just for the piccy from OM member Guy Newbold who
lives and works in Wasdale. See also the live webcam pics of
Scafell Pike and Great Gable.
The Wasdaleweb
Webcam now has a flashy new
camera for higher quality images and they looks great plus
there's now a new Scafell Pike web cam, which is currently
not working...
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Scottish
Avalanche Information Service
- Now up and running for all five major Scottish climbing
areas.
As of Friday, avalanche hazard is Low
(Category 1) in all areas. Unfortunately that's because
there's very little snow with very sparse climbing
conditions and little prospect of improvement....
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OUTDOORSmagic
web cam page Links to all the UK
mountain web cams we're aware of. If there's one that we've
missed, please drop
us a line and we'll add it to the
page. Good for getting a general idea of what the snow
situation's like, if the sun is shining, whether there's
anywhere to park in Coniston etc. Check the image you're
viewing is up to date as they often seem to go down.
We'll overhaul this page shortly as some of the links
aren't functioning or the cameras have disappeared. Clock
the snow at the Cairngorm Base Station....
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Sunday looks like a nigh on perfect early winter day.
Sunday is Christmas Day however...
Verdict If you can sneak away from
the turley and the relatives on Sunday then you won't be
disappointed, it looks like a damn near perfect Christmas
Day on the hills with a low chance of rain plus sunny spells
and, according to the MWIS, exceptional air clarity and
great visibility. It won't be warm however, so wrap up well
and don't forget the hot soup :-)
Here's hoping you have a great Christmas
from everyone on OUTDOORSmagic.
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Obvious Disclaimer Hey come
on, we all know mountain weather's unpredictable, and while
the above forecasts and links are a guide to what the
weather may do, remember that mountain areas also tend to
generate their own conditions, temperatures are much cooler
up top than in the valleys and conditions can be totally
different from down in the valleys.
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