•England Club Fields

•Mountain Weather

•Mountain Forecast Discussion

•Webcams and Weather Stations

Get an early West coast weather check - our Glencoe webcams are updating from shortly before 8am currently,with the Sledge Park camera on the Plateau operating 24/7. Our Leadhills camera in the Lowther Hills is online 24/7 for a weather check in the Southern Uplands.

CairnGorm Mountain is offering early season snowsports in the Top Basin with both the Ciste and Ptarmigan Tows in operation on Friday, giving the full Top Basin vertical of 600ft. Once again this evening, South East winds have been ramping up since late afternoon, with several cm of new snowfall possible overnight from areas of precipitation moving North.

Since dusk winds have accelerated from Storm Force to Hurricane Force at the summit at time of writing, what loose snow is around / falling on the Plateau / Southern aspects of CairnGorm will be getting driven into the Top Basin, so hopefully once the wind abates and drifting is groomed out on Saturday morning, things will have freshened up compared to the pretty firm and rough conditions reported on Thursday in particularly poor visibility.

The recent bouts of high winds from the SE quadrant have shifted snow from the back of CairnGorm onto the North side of the mountain, enabling both Top Basin tows to reopen, plus the Polar Express beginner tow. Wind speeds are projected to drop away to moderate SEly by opening time and if the forecast is correct the top tows should be good to go wind wise.

Below the Top Station there has been a slow thaw of lying snow, there is a patchy base down onto mid mountain, while this may catch a bit more for a time tonight, it is likely to continue to slowly thaw over the coming days as the freezing level nudges up.

So far apart from the Lecht nowhere has been even close to having sufficient snow for lift served riding amongst the Scottish areas. This is pretty much par for the course for early December, and particularly in the West pre Christmas openings are the exception. The Lecht is seeing its thin cover that was beginning to fill in the runs, slowly thaw and become increasingly patchy and that is set to continue over the next few days.

Snow has been accumulating above Island Rock at Glencoe, which means the top of the Main Basin, Happy Valley and the Spring Run are continuing to slowly fill and should catch more snow in showers and drifting this evening. Fluctuations in temperature are consolidating the existing snow, so hopefully we are seeing the start of a base on the sections of the mountain that need the most snow and that will come through possibly milder days early next week.

At Glencoe the Access Chairlift has reopened for winter and is now open daily (wind permitting). Not enough snow to push out an official sledge park yet, but there will be snow factory piles to play on this weekend. As the sledge park is not ready, the Plateau Cafe is not yet open. First chair up at 9am, last chair up at 3.30pm and last chair down at 4pm. White Corries Cafe at the base is open 8am to 4.30pm during early December.

The Nevis Range Gondola is open daily at present (wind permitting) with the last gondola up at 3.45pm and last down at 4pm. SE winds could affect the Gondola particularly later on Friday. The Gondola will be closed from Monday 5th January, until early February.

At update both the A93 Cairnwell Pass and A939 Lecht Pass were open.

:: England Club Fields

The three Pennine Clubfields all enjoyed a November start to their season, with Allenheads and Weardale notching up the first lift served UK snow turns of the season. There has not yet been sufficient snow at Raise in the Lake District and all clubfields are currently waiting for new snow.

For both Weardale and Allenheads, you need to join the club with a season pass, these are still available for both at this time.

Please check club access rules / availability if not a club member / pass holder.

Weardale: https: //skiweardale.com/ .
Allenheads: http://ski-allenheads.co.uk/ .
Yad Moss: https: //yadmoss.co.uk/ .
Raise: https: //www.ldscsnowski.co.uk/ .

:: Mountain Weather

At 6pm in the West at the Glencoe SSC hut at 850m the mid mountain temperature was 0.0°c, with a SE wind at a mean of 31 gusting 60mph. At the base it was +3.9°c at 6pm.

The SAIS summit AWS on Aonach Mor was reporting -2.1°c. The Met Office station was reporting a Southerly wind at 38 gusting 67mph (the Met Office AWS is returning incorrect temperature data). The Tower 17 AWS on the Gondola was offline due to a flat battery and it is unlikely to recharge over the next few days! At Tulloch Station (237m) the temperature was +6°c.

In the East the CairnGorm the Met Office Summit AWS reported -2.1°c with a Storm Force South Easterly on an increasing trajectory at a mean of 62 gusting 81mph. Aviemore was at +7.2°c at 6pm.

The Met Office Cairnwell AWS (3061ft /934m) reported -0.3°c with a SE wind at a mean of 57 gusting 74 mph.

:: Mountain Forecast Discussion

Very strong SE winds will peak at Hurricane Force on and immediately downslope of the Cairngorm Plateau this evening, but wind speeds should moderate substantially by or through the dawn period on Saturday. By the scheduled 10am opening time for CairnGorm the wind speeds are forecast to be below the threshold for operating the Top Basin T-bars. Overnight periods of snow will give way to wintry showers, falling as snow on the summits intermixed with brighter spells. Showers are expected to fizzle out by late morning with a dry or largely dry afternoon for the Northern Cairngorms. Munro level temperature rising to +2°c. SE winds around 20 to 25mph gusting 35mph .

The West Highlands should also see any lingering wintry showers clear to give a dry afternoon, but more overcast with less change of any sunny spells towards the South of the area. For the Glencoe area wind speeds should drop away even more than for the Northern Cairngorms and Nevis Range, lulling to around 10 to 15mph.

Sunday will be a mirror image with the morning seeing the best chance of brighter interludes before cloud thickens up during the afternoon. Probably dry for most of daylight hours, but towards dusk the moderate SE wind will start to pick up ahead of incoming precipitation. Rain will be briefly preceded by high level snow or freezing rain before the freezing level lifts above the higher summits. Plus 2 rising +4°c at Munro Level.

The fairly unsettled, but rather nondescript weather this past week looks like setting teh scene for next week too, but initially slightly milder than the past few days. Generally a continuation of the pattern with areas of low pressure circulating to the west and north of Scotland, with day to day detail is likely to chop and change. However, some of the model runs are throwing up deeper areas of low pressure that could potentially affect Northern Scotland at least, however there is no consistent outcome run to run or model to model, with some model output not showing anything of note.

The uncertainty can be seen in both the 850hpa temperature ensembles with a 6°c spread in the GFS by early Monday and the surface pressure which had close to 40mb spread by Wednesday on the 00z and 12z GFS runs on Friday, but that spread was absent on the 06z GFS which completely lacked the members going for a deeper low impacting Highland Scotland. Nonetheless there have been some model runs throwing up surface level Storm Force winds as early as Monday afternoon, so keep a close eye on how the forecast weather is evolving over the coming days if planning outdoor activities.

While it looks as if the freezing level is likely to lift above the tops for the start of the new week, in the medium term, a flatter but cooler zonal pattern looks slightly favoured. This will not be pleasant at low levels, but is the kind of setup that can bring fairly stormy conditions with mountain snow that is ideal for base building!

:: Webcams and Weather Stations

Lowther Hill: Leadhills webcam is online (24/7).

GLENCOE: Most mountain webcams online and the first updated images will be shortly before 8am. The sledge park camera is online 24/7. Wind speed is available from base and mid mountain, temperature / humidity are also available from the top of the Access Chair. Summit has no power at present.