Weekend weather prospects for the main hill areas checked out. Will this endless winter never end? Is that an oxymoron? Don't forget your hat...
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Weekend Weather 8/9 April '06
in association with GORE-TEX® fabrics
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Fact of the Week!
Britain gets several tornadoes each year. One of the
worst hit west London on Dec 8th, 1954, ripping through
Chiswick, Gunnersbury, Acton, Golders Green and
Southgate.
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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.
'The extended outlook as we look
towards the middle of April is for further unsettled
conditions from time to time but of more significance is the
likelyhood temperatures will remain at or below the long
term seasonal average. As a result there is no sign on the
horizon of any spring warmth at the moment, in fact if
anything the risk of wintry precipitation over Northern
parts may well continue for quite some time.'
Welcome to the jolly, optimist world
of computerised weather modelling :-)
You can check out individual areas or
dig a bit deeper for the Mountain
Forecast page or the
Climbing
Forecast page. The
Seven-Day
Charts give a handy
overview too.
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Mountain
Weather Information
Service has great
downloadable mountain-specific forecasts for
NW, W and SE Highlands,
Cairngorms, Southern Uplands, Peak District and
Lakes in PDF format. Plus a Snowdonia
forecast. The Peak and Snowdonia forecasts are now
restricted to weekend forecasts and go out on Thursday,
Friday and Saturday. Worth wading through the increasingly
cluttered lay-out.
New the number of Scottish
forecast areas has been increased to give better coverage
and now includes the Southern Uplands in addition to the
main highland areas
Nasty, nasty, nasty north of the
border with a mix of wind, snow and freezing temperatures up
top exacerbated by serious windchill that will make minus 2
feel more like minus 20 on Saturday. Calming down a bit for
Sunday.
England and Wales also cold with a
windy, showery Saturday, calmer on Sunday except for the
Lakes which is forecast to cope some high winds and more
snow showers. Again freezing on the tops.
Check individual forecasts for
specific details. Arguably the best mountain-specific
forecast out there by a way.
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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 'Wintry showers over
Scotland and Northern Ireland will be widespread. Southeast
England will start wet but will become drier. Showers will
become wintry over English and Welsh hills.'
Sunday 'Southern counties of
England will see the driest and brightest weather. Most
other areas will have sunny spells but further showers, some
wintry. It will feel cold in a northerly wind.'
BBC specific areas:
Fort
William / Kendal
/ Betws-y-Coed
/ Aviemore
/ Skipton
/ Glossop
(Peak) / Brecon
/ Milton
Keynes.
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Met
Office For localised
five-day forecasts use this
page.
Saturday 'Wintry showers north and
west, windy in north. Rain in south at first, then sunny
spells south and east. Feeling cold.'
Sunday Winds swinging round to the
north, wintry showers and some sunny intervals.
Welsh Mountain Forecasts Useful
online forecasts covering the National Park areas of
Snowdonia
- and the Brecon
Beacons.
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Scottish
Avalanche Information Service
- Full service now up and running for winter with avalanche
and climbing condition reports for five major Scottish
climbing areas - Lochaber, northern and southern Cairngorms,
Glencoe and Creag Meagaidh.
The forecast for today, Friday, is for
cat 3, 'considerable' avalanche risk on some slopes in all
areas. Check the latest forecast before you go out. It's
also posted in strategic locations close the the
hills.
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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.
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More snow.
Windy, cold, raw - haven't we had enough winter for now
;-)
Verdict Another seriously wintry weekend
with a combination of low temperatures, serious wind chill and wintry
showers making for weather that's likely to feel more like February
than April and, if Metcheck is right, there's more to come. Wrap up
welll...
For winter kit advice, see the links at the bottom of this
article.
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.
