UKC

Hello all. What are conditions typically like for March in Northern Cairngorms? Planning a trip for some easy winter walking and maybe scratch the axes on a few gullies but just wondering whether they'll be anything on the ground.

In reply to Vaughany89:

I'm trying to find out if there will be snow around next week after the apparent heatwave were getting at the end of this week ?

Last March it was still full winter well past March so with some luck you should be fine but nobody really knows.

Keep everything crossed (even you're eyes ) and prey.

In reply to Vaughany89:

March is quite likely to be good for snow cover most years and the gullies will normally be full of neve. Daylight hours are better than in December/ January so you won't have to be rushing as much to get back in daylight. Of course you have to be watching the forecasts- the Cairngorms give some of the most extreme weather in the British isles. Windspeeds of over 150mph have been recorded. Get acquainted with MWIS and the Met Mountain forecasts. Stay safe and enjoy!

In reply to Vaughany89:

It can be a great time to be over on the west coast. There tends to be more snow left on the Ben / Aonach Mor etc at that time of year.

In reply to Vaughany89:

When were you thinking? start of march or end of march?

In reply to Vaughany89:

The Cairngorms will nearly always have snow in the easy gullies and on the plateau that time of year.

In reply to Michael Gordon:
March 2012 wasn't too good
http://ncairngormsblog.sais.gov.uk/2012/03/page/2/

and the end of march 2011 wasn't great either.

Then there was that year that Ben nevis was amazing in March and April and very few other venues were as it was too mild over the winter for snow and ice to accumulate much under 1100 metres or so, 2006 or 2007 I think. Anyway.

In reply to Vaughany89:

Using Ben Nevis instead of the Cairngorms produces the following for the last 10 years on a scale of nothing, poor, ok, good, very good

March 2006 - good
March 2007 - good
March 2008 - good
March 2009 - ok
March 2010 - good
March 2011 - poor
March 2012 - nothing
March 2013 - Very good
March 2014 - ok
March 2015 - good/very good

So, according to my highly scientific measurement scale you have a 1/10 chance of it being bollox and a 6/10 chance of it being pretty good....

In reply to LakesWinter:


Wasn't that the year that heavy snowfall made the Ben a bit of a deathtrap? I don't think Point 5 saw a single ascent all Winter.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Yes, 11/12 was a crap winter all round though!

In reply to planetmarshall:

I could be wrong but you may mean Smith's Route - one recent winter saw a huge cornice over it the whole time! Would be extremely unusual for the Point not to have been climbed.

In reply to LakesWinter:

March/April 2007 conditions were amazing on the Ben but pretty much non-existent everywhere else! But that's quite unusual (the conditions).

In reply to Michael Gordon:

I don't know about very early or late in the season, but I think it's correct about Point Five Gully.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Yeah I wanted to climb in Scotland late winter / early spring 2014 but for the routes I was interested in and given the crazy wind nie on the whole winter it just wasn't justifiable.

In reply to LakesWinter:

I think basically we can say
1: 10 not doable
1: 10 pish poor
1: 10 too much snow
So 7:10 of chance of any year giving conditions worth visiting in march.

However of that 7:10 a lot of the time the weather will still be too crazy windy to get anything done - say 30% of the days or more on average?

I still think late march is often a worse bet than early march but anyway.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Yeah that's right as I understand it, but there were still plenty of routes to do on Ben Nevis that March, so it was a sight better than 2012 and had more to go at than 2011 too.

In reply to LakesWinter:

I was climbing on the Buachaille and SCNL in March 2011 so can't have been too bad - it was a very good winter overall. That said, the Buachaille weekend saw a huge dump of snow so maybe the Ben was out then.

In reply to Michael Gordon:

All my comments were for the end of March, there was indeed a lot of snow mid month, followed by a big thaw.

In reply to LakesWinter:

The MET office's climate anomaly maps make interesting viewing. Weather in March seems much more stable tan, say, December where the mean temperatures have swung back and forth between extremes in the last few years.

Mean minimum temperatures for 2010 were fairly typical, whereas 2012 and 2013 were warmer and colder on average respectively (which match your recollections).

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate-anomalies/#?tab=climateA...

In reply to LakesWinter:

Ah, fair enough

In reply to planetmarshall:

Yes, sounds about right

In reply to planetmarshall:

Awesome weather geekery, nice one!