Mountain snow or wintry reports

[The Eagle]

Thought this would be a good topic.

I was up the Wicklow mountains, south of Dublin, today and it was snowing up there which is not a supprise but it is interesting for us weather watchers how weather deviates with height. Its also a different reality because your so close, if not, in the clouds which I was at times. So what mountains have you been to recently and what were the weather conditions? Also if you have temperature from a car thermometer or whatever that would be good.

This time of year is the most opportune time to visit the hills or mountains for weather variety. For example today near the top of the mountains it was completely snow. Mid way was sleety hail and slighly less was just hail before rain at low ground.

Edited February 25, 2008 by Darkman

[Roger J Smith]

What's the highest elevation that the road reaches there? Around Vancouver, there was recently snow lying on exposed ground as low as 200 m asl, that melted in the past three days but there is still snow in forested areas near sea level even though the highs have reached 12-14 C the past few days out in the open. These micro-climates are very strong at this time of year. We have a large park near where I live, surrounded by miles of urban area, but inside the dense forest canopy it feels about 5 C when it is 12-14 C in open areas nearby. It is only in late summer and autumn that the temperature equalizes in the forest and it probably peaks in absolute terms in September.

Meanwhile, the snow line in more exposed terrain has now receded up to about 350 metres asl, but it is still the full winter snow pack above 600 metres, up there it has not even started to melt yet.

[The Eagle]

What's the highest elevation that the road reaches there? Around Vancouver, there was recently snow lying on exposed ground as low as 200 m asl, that melted in the past three days but there is still snow in forested areas near sea level even though the highs have reached 12-14 C the past few days out in the open. These micro-climates are very strong at this time of year. We have a large park near where I live, surrounded by miles of urban area, but inside the dense forest canopy it feels about 5 C when it is 12-14 C in open areas nearby. It is only in late summer and autumn that the temperature equalizes in the forest and it probably peaks in absolute terms in September.

Meanwhile, the snow line in more exposed terrain has now receded up to about 350 metres asl, but it is still the full winter snow pack above 600 metres, up there it has not even started to melt yet.

The highest the roads in Wicklow reach is between 800 and 900m's with the real height of the mountains around 950m's. However the distortion is that Wicklow is generally high i.e excluding the mountains its like a mountain range which means that as a shower passes some mountains it turns to snow and the mountains inland from there get a covering. Wicklow has a snow line as you suggest but right now, in terms of lying snow its higher then the peaks. However more often in winter the snow lying line is visble across the higher levels that the roads (as high as they are comparitively) dont reach. Also the weather can change dramatically on the roads over the mountains in minutes - rain to blizzard which I experienced at my cost a couple of times.

BTW do you find as intriguing as I do the variation in weather with height? I love to see this variation and must get some snaps online for you.

Wicklow above the clouds:

Edited February 25, 2008 by Darkman

[The Eagle]

Wicklow snow on mountain

[The Eagle]

double post.......

Edited February 25, 2008 by Darkman

[J07]

Hi,

Over here we don't have many high public roads, despite the country being much more mountainous than the British Isles. I assume this is because of historical purposes. Why build a road over a 3000m high pass when you can build one over a 1000m pass?

Due to this, our highest public road perhaps only gets to about 1400m ASL. This is actually the main road in NZ- State Highway 1, when it passes over a region of the central plateau known as the Desert Road (Rangipo Desert). Frequent snow in winter, and also during summer cold snaps.

The highest actual mountain pass road is probably Arthur's Pass (about 1000m ASL). Another high public road is driving over the Crown Range. Other notable passes with sealed roads passing over them are the Lindis Pass, Haast Pass, Takaka Hill and Lewis Pass.

All these high roads can technically get snow year round. However, permanent lying snow will not occur until May or June, and will persist until October or November. But usually, permanent snow lines in NZ are over 2000m, and I would say more like 2500m. There are two well known permanent snowfields called the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Allah, and of course several hundred glaciers in the country; some very small and some a bit bigger (not big on a world scale, but impressive for how close they approach the sea at this latitude).

Due to this, you rarely have to drive through old, accumulated snow, though if you go to ski fields obviously you will be driving on bad gravel roads at high altitude and requiring chains and/or 4WD. This is a bit different to what the average city or country driver will experience. Having said that, in a cold winter, highland areas (basins above 700m ASL, or very sheltered inland basins above 200m) can accumulate snow which does not thaw. No cities or major commercial towns exist in these regions though.

I've attached some reasonably relevant photos. One shows a non-permanent snowfall at approx 1500m ASL last March (cold snap). It definitely did not persist.

Another shows a glacier transitioning into permanent snow.

Another shows a permanent snow level, extending from maybe 2500m ASL up to 3800m ASL.

Finally, from the other end of the season, a Spring photo (October) showing non-permanent but persistent (through winter) snow levels perhaps down to 1500m ASL.

This is obviously a bad time for snow. It's unlikely that anything serious will land before early/mid June.

But, we had a brief cold snap about two weeks ago, roughly. Here is a photo of Benmore Peak in Central Otago, roughly 1900m ASL. Please note that I did not take this photo.

I can be fairly certain this snow was gone in a few days.

Edited February 25, 2008 by J07