>Muirhead and Camphill Reservoirs of North Ayrshire loose their winter ice-cover after nearly 3 months
Even on Arran’s peaks, snowcover is restricted to the highest peaks now after weekend rains and warmer temperatures.
Muirhead Reservoir, January 2010
Muirhead Reservoir, January 2010
Frozen surface of Muirhead Reservoir
Since joining Grahams Dairies from Asda back last October, my drive across Ayrshire has become a daily duty and indeed verious landmarks and features capture your eye, and recatures it, particularly in winter when a magnificant new land of ice and snow changes everything. I have day in and day out driven past the remote and relatively high-in-elevation, Muirhead Reservoir and beside it, Camphill Reservoir, both located almost side by side on the main route between Kilbirnie and Largs in North Ayrshire.
Since late December, early January when both these reservoirs began to ice up as persistently clear, starry nights and sunny days supported low temperatures which began to grip this region hard just like the rest of Scotland, Soon these waters cooled enough to support ice it both their surfaces and soon this would become a near permanent feature, since Christmas and only up till this past weekend have these seservoirs been void of ice. Throughout this winter they have either been completely ice-covered or at least partly ice-covered and with a stiff west wind blowing on Friday past, ice sheets where floating and backing up against the downwind shoreline, white caps where visible is some portions whilst most of their surfaces where still solid ice-sheet.
When driving past today, both Muirhead and Camphill reservoirs were completely ice-free and all their ice which remained fairly expansive even on just Friday was gone completely. Warmer temperatures and rains likey got rid of this ice and is likely to remain ice-free from now on.
However all it may take is another night below freezing to refreeze a thin layer on the surface of both these bodies of water. Even during the mild weather durng the second half of January, even the slightest below freezing nights saw a return to ice cover, we had a few nights below freezing and this was enough to keep ice on these two bodies of water, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we perhaps see another thin layer develop and this is because those waters are likely hovering right around freezing point and all it takes is air directly above the waters surface to be at or slightly below freezing point for ice to reform, this has been the case throughout this winter after several weeks where ice lay thick on top. Since around Christmas, these two bodies of water have rarely been ice-free, a testament to a cold, long winter.
What I also find of great interest about ths great winter we’ve had endured is, these reservoirs aren’t anymore than 4 miles from the coast and mild Atlantic waters and mild Atlantic air flow, yet just a few miles inland and at an elevation at or below 1,000ft, we have seen a continental winter and persistent cold and frequent periods of snow in which snow has been present on the ground more than it hasn’t this winter…. Quite amazing..
Also snow is dwindling on Irish Law, a hill which rises to an elevation of 1,588 ft and just 4 miles from Largs which overlooks these two reservoirs and what snow remains is the patches of residual drifting after about a foot of snow fell during late February and created huge snow piles after a JCB was drafted in to dig out Mills Dairy, which is where I deliver to 5-days a week, they were literally snowed in for a couple of days before the front end loader came in and dug them out, leaving behind 5 to 7 snow piles some 10 to 12 feet high.
Only shrunken snow piles remain within the parking around and at points along the road, but remember, this is now March 16 and there is still snow on the ground in many places across Scotland and the rest of the UK….. I believe the Pennines of England still have snow on the ground since Dec 16 and the Campsire which I am looking out at right no, still have snow on it’s north face but lots more snow remains up and over the hills where I measured an impressive 5″ at one spot and 9″ at another along the roadside… Drifts are still several feet deep in areas.
Thanks for reading.
-Mark
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