weekend storms brewing

Thu, Oct 16, 2008

It’s all change at this time of year as big Atlantic depressions rumble across bringing cold fronts that cause violent uplift of the warmer air mass. The cold air sweeps in and undercuts the warm air in front of it, which results in a sudden uplift, as the warm air is “shoveled” up in spade loads into the higher atmosphere. The results are dramatic:

The rain falls as very heavy showers. Short and sharp and drenching and along with the cold winds, it makes for challenging conditions in the hills, especially so in winter. In fact, this Sunday looks rather wild:

Forecast is for storm force winds, so we could see gusts of 70-80mph, plus snow on highest summits. The general feeling among outdoors types is winters are becoming increasingly windy, with storm force winds the norm. I’m starting to assess my winter kit as the new season approaches when I can restart work on my Winter ML logbook and get back into some fantastically wild situations.