Climb To Cairn Gorm Summit, The Windiest Place In The UK!

Well I took my first trip up Cairngorm Mountain yesterday. Leaving the house at 5.30am I drove up the A9 exiting at Aviemore and Coylumbridge and reached the car park at the base of Cairn Gorm around 8.30am.

When leaving the car, skies were part cloudy, air temp +3C with even sunshine peeking through but during the climb, as you’d expect, temps dropped, winds picked up and eventually I entered the clouds with Loch Morloch disappearing from view down below.

Sustained winds of 50-70 mph, gusts to 120 mph occur pretty much every winter season on this highly exposed summit and according to data from the weather station, gusts topped 111 mph during the early hours of yesterday morning. By the time I reached the top of the chair lift and entered the upper reaches of the 4,084ft munro (6th highest in the UK), it was an icy, windswept and bleak environment with winds still gusting 90+mph just a few hundred feet above me. You could hear the roar overhead.

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Shrouded in cloud and surrounded by ice sculpted rocks, I could see first hand why people get caught out when weather closes in up here. This is something I wouldn’t attempt in the heart of winter as blizzard conditions and severe wind chill can create a life or death situation very quickly. This very mountain to this day holds the UK wind speed record of 173 mph set back March 20, 1986.

Credit: Ordinance Survey / scottishsnow.wordpress.com

Credit: Ordinance Survey / scottishsnow.wordpress.com

Face mask on, I continued my ascent beyond the chair lift into the rocky and treacherous final 100ft to the top, there was no protection from a sustained, brutal wind chill of -15C (in gusts). That was combining a -2C air temperature and gusts to 74 mph.

At around 10am, an hour and a half after leaving my car, I arrived at the top of Cairn Gorm and saw for myself the well anchored, ‘rime ice’ covered, wind swept weather station operated by Heriot Watt University and the Met Office.

Credit: snowforecast.com

Credit: snowforecast.com

Winds just hours before gusted to 111 mph and the gusts I experienced were around hurricane-force 81 mph dropping to 74 mph and I admit, it was hard to stand in it. I took shelter behind the stone wall of the weather station and enjoyed a cold sausage roll from Greggs and a pot noodle. As I caught my breathe and eate, you could hear a constant roar of wind blowing through the mast, common to here but uncommon 4,000ft below. It made me think. During a particularly stormy spell back in December 2011, a strong Atlantic low generated an astonishing 165 mph wind gust on the very spot I stood. Since then gusts have topped 135 mph.

Back on December 19, 2008, the summit weather station recorded a potential new UK wind record of 194 mph but this was never made official by the Met Office and so the 1986 record remains to this day.

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

Credit: Mark Vogan

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Weather data from yesterday.

cairngorm

From Wikipedia

1971 disaster[edit]

On 21–22 November 1971, five pupils from Ainslie Park High School in Edinburgh and a trainee instructor from Newcastle-under-Lyme died in a blizzard at Feith Buidhe on the Cairn Gorm plateau.[8] As of 2009[update] it stands as the UK’s worst mountaineering disaster.[9]

UK climate – Extremes

Weather extremes

Gust speeds

Highest gust speed records – by country (low-level sites)

Country Speed Date Location
Scotland 123 knots / 142 mph 13 February 1989 Fraserburgh (Aberdeenshire)
Northern Ireland 108 knots / 124 mph 12 January 1974 Kilkeel (County Down)
Wales 108 knots / 124 mph 28 October 1989 Rhoose (Vale of Glamorgan)
England 103 knots / 118 mph 15 December 1979 Gwennap Head (Cornwall)

The highest gust speed from a high level site is 150 knots (173 mph) at Cairngorm Summit (1,245 metres AMSL) on 20 March 1986.

Highest gust speed records – by district (low-level sites)

District Speed Date Location
Scotland E 123 knots / 142 mph 13 February 1989 Fraserburgh (Aberdeenshire)
Scotland N 118 knots / 136 mph 7 February 1969 Kirkwall (Orkney)
Wales S 108 knots / 124 mph 28 October 1989 Rhoose (Vale of Glamorgan)
England SW 103 knots / 118 mph 15 December 1979 Gwennap Head (Cornwall)
England SE & Central S 100 knots / 115 mph 4 January 1998 Needles Old Battery (Isle of Wight)
England SE & Central S 100 knots / 115 mph 16 October 1987 Shoreham-by-Sea (West Sussex)
Midlands 99 knots / 114 mph 13 January 1984 High Bradfield (South Yorkshire)
Wales N 97 knots / 112 mph 24 December 1997 Aberdaron (Gwynedd)
England E & NE 95 knots / 109 mph 2 June 1975 South Gare (North Yorkshire)
Scotland W 95 knots / 109 mph 26 December 1998 Salsburgh (Lanarkshire)
England NW 88 knots / 101 mph 13 January 1984 Sellafield (Cumbria)
England NW 88 knots / 101 mph 16 January 1984 Sellafield (Cumbria)
England NW 88 knots / 101 mph 8 January 2005 St Bees Head (Cumbria)
East Anglia 87 knots / 100 mph 16 October 1987 Shoeburyness (Essex)

These records are based on digitised data from 1969 and exclude stations above 500 metres AMSL. When compiling this table, an attempt has been made to verify all records by comparing values with neighbouring stations.

Here’s the view from Cairn Gorm during the big winter of 2009-10.

 

See video for details on the coming cold shot late week into the weekend.

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