eBothy Blog

Went for a lunchtime wander yesterday from work. Fantastic weather and a fair bit of snow on the tops. They’re even skiing in the ‘gorms this weekend!

Loads of snow yesterday on the tops, down to about 1000 feet, looking very wintery indeed and it’s not even November! Fantastic sunrise this morning over Beinn Sgritheall, Ladhair Bheinn and the loch:

There were about a dozen fieldfares on the rowan this morning, discoing on the wind blown branches but they’ve arrived a bit too late for the berries. They normally have a feast waiting for them but the rowan is almost bare now. Very cold today with icy north winds and heavy hail showers. Blaven is starting to look alpine. Wonder if we’re in for a good winter?

In forty years, the OMM has never been cancelled, until yesterday, when the weather was just too much. Grough and the BBC have reports about the chaos. The weather here at sea level was wild enough so I can only imagine what it must have been like high up in the Lakes as the storm moved south, especially if you’re only equipped with lightweight gear. 120mph winds had abated somewhat to 90mph and burns were full to bursting but these folk know what they’re doing. Let’s hope they all get off ok. Up here is forecast for heavy snow above 650m and lightning. Reading about the OMM has put me in the mood for a short run round Leitir Fura.

UPDATE 27/10/08

Race reports unfolding all the time, from those who were there. More Grough on the garbage media reporting. Interesting discussion on Martin’s blog.

So I went down to the co-op in Broadford for some grub for tomorrow’s bimble up the hill and I popped along to Camas Malaig on the road to Torrin. It’s a nice coastal walk from there to the clearance villages of Boreraig and Suisinish and I thought it would be interesting to see what the sea was doing. Forecasted winds in the Cuillin were 120mph today, with Violent Storm 11 in the Minch. Just a measly 80mph for the rest of us. It certainly felt like 50mph steady. I could barely see into the rain, it was hammering so heavy with the wind. Tomorrow, with heavy snow above 650m, high burn levels and the risk of lightning, it might be another book in bed day.

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Hot foot from a blasting on Ben Macdui, myself and Penguin headed through Inverness, down to Drumnadrochit and across to Bearnock Country Centre, where we were due to meet up with Allan’s club, the Blantyre hillwalking and rambling club, one of who’s members was due to complete her final munro on the Saturday. A real posh gaff, Bearnock, she’d booked it out for about 30 people complete with dinner and wine but the pair of us were feckless drifters in a sea of doctorial intelligentsia, without accommodation as Allan had given up his place as I didn’t have one (not being in the club or even met any of them) and we decided to charm our way into some form of doss for a couple of nights. As luck would have it, the proprietor was a real gent and he wouldn’t have any such nonsense as camping in the grounds. Instead, he showed us to the laundry, with its two comfy sofas, heater and tumble dryer. As I stood there in the warm, luxurious and spacious room, something niggled at me. No fire! That was it. I was itching to light the bothy fire but that would have sent us straight to poky!

Forecast for Saturday says it all. Think I’ll postpone that bimble up Blaven:

I posted yesterday about the approaching storm and today it arrived in full force. The telly reported 88mm (3 inches) of rain down the road at Lusa and we’ve been battered all day by storm force winds. Stornoway had 75mph and it’s looking like they might get 100mph tomorrow. The rain has just been phenomenal and at one point the entire world disappeared as a violent burst of weather swept in from the south west and blew the top off the chimney, which ended up about 30 feet away. It’s still wild at the moment and it’s quite exciting listening to the roar of the gale through the trees.

I’ve been following the West Highland Way wanderings of Mick and Gayle and Duncan, who have all been hit hard by the weather. It’s now time to really batten down the hatches. We’ve got a brief spell of calmer weather tomorrow but it’s going to ramp up again tomorrow evening, with more 100mph winds, thunder on Sunday and then deteriorating into significant accumulations of snow across the highlands most of next week.

Last Sunday was wild as forecast with storm force winds and torrential rain in the west and Thursday is looking like an even stormier day, with 100mph winds forecast for the hills.

The above chart produces the following forecast:

It’s a raw day at the eBothy today with strong south-westerlies and snow down to around 1500 feet. There was a dusting this morning but it’s been snowing up there all day by the looks of it. There’s another storm on the way for Thursday and the Met Office have published their winter forecast for 2008/9. You can read it here. Looking back over my weather posts, the last couple of years have more or less started the same, with early snow around end of September, early October with not much else after that, except last year when we had mega-dumps which didn’t consolidate. This year feels different so far though, with more traditional weather in evidence. Prolonged snowfall and gale force winds with torrential rain lower down. The Met Office are saying it’ll be another above average temperature winter this year although less mild than last year’s, which feels about right so far. I notice the Cairngorm AWS has started working again – see the widget on the right of the page so I’ll be keeping an eye on the ‘gorms weather as it tends to get rather interesting in winter. With storm force winds and more snow forecast, it’ll be great to get out on the hill this weekend!