 Poster: A snowHead
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Amazing photos, as ever!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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brilliant pics there mike 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Thanks guys
SUNDAY 26 DECEMBER 2010
Return to the Graig Montet
After a wonderful Christmas Day with family and friends it was time to revisit the mountain above my house before the forecasted rise in temperature and rain washed it all away.
I was a little slow out of the blocks and didn't set off until sunrise.
Sunrise in Pendarren St, Aberdare
Instead of walking up the mountain road, I bootpacked up the path and the slopes I intended to ski. Monday's snow had filled in most of mine and others tracks and whilst the snow wasn't as deep and light as it had been on the 18th it still made for some great turns.
As an homage to all the great pics we see from Chamonix with a skier carving powder high above the town I set up the following two shots
Turns from the top of The Graig with the Aberdare to Maerdy mountain road and Aberdare town in the background
Another great morning out skiing Aberdare, made especially so as it was walk to turns.
MONDAY 27 DECEMBER TO WEDNESDAY 29 DECEMBER 2010
Warmer temperatures, fog, mist and rain has eaten the snow down low. The mountains have been shrouded for days so it's anyone's guess if there's any left up high.
No return to below freezing temps or further snowfall forecast for the coming days.
That could be it for 2010. But what a magnificent year for skiing in South Wales. Six months of turns (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Nov, Dec) and unforgettable memories.
Interesting article by Judah Cohen in the Opinion Pages of The International Herald Tribune on Monday
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26cohen.html?src=me&ref=general
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Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming
By JUDAH COHEN
THE earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside. Over the past few weeks, subzero temperatures in Poland claimed 66 lives; snow arrived in Seattle well before the winter solstice, and fell heavily enough in Minneapolis to make the roof of the Metrodome collapse; and last week blizzards closed Europe’s busiest airports in London and Frankfurt for days, stranding holiday travelers. The snow and record cold have invaded the Eastern United States, with more bad weather predicted.
All of this cold was met with perfect comic timing by the release of a World Meteorological Organization report showing that 2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record.
How can we reconcile this? The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes. Last winter, too, was exceptionally snowy and cold across the Eastern United States and Eurasia, as were seven of the previous nine winters.
For a more detailed explanation, we must turn our attention to the snow in Siberia.
Annual cycles like El Niño/Southern Oscillation, solar variability and global ocean currents cannot account for recent winter cooling. And though it is well documented that the earth’s frozen areas are in retreat, evidence of thinning Arctic sea ice does not explain why the world’s major cities are having colder winters.
But one phenomenon that may be significant is the way in which seasonal snow cover has continued to increase even as other frozen areas are shrinking. In the past two decades, snow cover has expanded across the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Siberia, just north of a series of exceptionally high mountain ranges, including the Himalayas, the Tien Shan and the Altai.
The high topography of Asia influences the atmosphere in profound ways. The jet stream, a river of fast-flowing air five to seven miles above sea level, bends around Asia’s mountains in a wavelike pattern, much as water in a stream flows around a rock or boulder. The energy from these atmospheric waves, like the energy from a sound wave, propagates both horizontally and vertically.
As global temperatures have warmed and as Arctic sea ice has melted over the past two and a half decades, more moisture has become available to fall as snow over the continents. So the snow cover across Siberia in the fall has steadily increased.
The sun’s energy reflects off the bright white snow and escapes back out to space. As a result, the temperature cools. When snow cover is more abundant in Siberia, it creates an unusually large dome of cold air next to the mountains, and this amplifies the standing waves in the atmosphere, just as a bigger rock in a stream increases the size of the waves of water flowing by.
The increased wave energy in the air spreads both horizontally, around the Northern Hemisphere, and vertically, up into the stratosphere and down toward the earth’s surface. In response, the jet stream, instead of flowing predominantly west to east as usual, meanders more north and south. In winter, this change in flow sends warm air north from the subtropical oceans into Alaska and Greenland, but it also pushes cold air south from the Arctic on the east side of the Rockies. Meanwhile, across Eurasia, cold air from Siberia spills south into East Asia and even southwestward into Europe.
That is why the Eastern United States, Northern Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinarily snowy and cold winters since the turn of this century. Most forecasts have failed to predict these colder winters, however, because the primary drivers in their models are the oceans, which have been warming even as winters have grown chillier. They have ignored the snow in Siberia.
Last week, the British government asked its chief science adviser for an explanation. My advice to him is to look to the east.
It’s all a snow job by nature. The reality is, we’re freezing not in spite of climate change but because of it.
Judah Cohen is the director of seasonal forecasting at an atmospheric and environmental research firm. |
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Mike Pow wrote: |
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Utter genius! Never has Aberdare looked so good!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Mike Pow, absolutely amazing
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Mike Pow, nice work 
Interesting comment in the news feature about the snow cover in the East expanding. When I've looked at this before the theory is that more snow cover = more snow cover, so things may continue to get colder.
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Mike, truly inspirational again!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Mike - your images are fantastic. They shouldn't be tucked away in this thread. Presumably you have a blog somewhere?
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Thanks all.
No blog Feast but seriously considering it for 2011. Maybe even a resolution. 1080 HD of course 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Awesome Mike, I'm so jealous you were up there on Christmas Eve. The weather was splendid that day; the imposing North East face of Pen-y-Fan looks awesome and every bit a big mountain with that thick covering of snow almost completly covering those steep buttresses. Everytime I go up there I get treated to thick hill fog and gales. Me and Pen-y-Fan aren't friends any more. Wonderful, wonderful images.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Just back from Aviemore and catching up on your exploits Mike - fantastic photos as ever, well done!
So how are things now, any snow left or new snow falling (snowing in Bristol right now)?
Am hoping there will be skiable snow sometime in the next few weeks, would like to get up for a bit of fun before returning north in Feb. 
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Snowed here this morning and has just started again. Had a great walk on a snowy Wenallt this morning
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Mike Pow, Aberdare - so my Dad was born in a ski resort. That explains it then.
Great pics
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Poster: A snowHead
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Indeed it is interesting. What it describes is a negative feedback ... a thermostat, if you will, that limits the temperature, even as "forcings" act to increase it.
Acting by itself, a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ (it's at about 40% greater than pre-industrial levels at the moment) would add approximately 1.0ºC to the temperature. The IPCC estimate of the effect of a doubling of CO₂ is an increase of 2.0–4.5ºC; in other words, their estimates assume strong positive feedbacks.
Meanwhile, although the noughties was the warmest decade in the 150 years or so of reasonable instrumental records, the earth's surface didn't actually warm up during it. Ready as they may be with post hoc rationalisations, I don't think the likes of Judah Cohen predicted that and tend to shy away from drawing attention to it.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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MONDAY 03 JANUARY 2011
Happy New Year.
The warming temperatures and steady drizzle at the end of the holiday period decimiated the snowpack.
Isolated strips in gullies or tucked in folds on north facing slopes are all that's left to remind us of the excellent late December conditions.
But it looks like we won't have to wait long for the next chance.
It's tried to snow all day here in Aberdare and a return to colder temperatures and snow is forecast for the weekend.
Watch this space!
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Mon 3-01-11 19:21; edited 1 time in total
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Mike Pow, great pics!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Ooh, that terrain looks very inviting
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Mike Pow,
Great pics, as usual. Hope to see you on Pen y Fan (and any other SHs) if the snow returns.
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THURSDAY 06 JANUARY 2011
Derek's saying that December 2010 was the coldest month in Wales for at least 100 years
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/walesnature/2011/01/up_and_down_like_a_yo-yo.html
After two days of persistent rainfall the mercury is dropping.
Up to 20cm forecast tonight into the early hours of tomorrow morning. Continued snowfall expected throughout the morning but turning to rain below 1,000m by lunchtime.
Small window of opportunity in the Beacons early tomorrow. See you there.
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FRIDAY 07 JANUARY 2011
Just a skiff in Aberdare although it was cold enough to stick.
Traffic camera for The Storey Arms is showing patchy accumulation down low and a grey, damp morning.
http://www.traffic-wales.com/traffic
Already turning to rain, and I don't do rain.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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SATURDAY 08 JANUARY - MONDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2011
A normal Welsh winter.
Rain, drizzle, downpours, gales, mist, above freezing temps, and more rain. Oh and did I mention the rain?
But on Valentine's Day the chance of a little loving
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/loutdoor/mountainsafety/brecon/brecon_latest_pressure.html
Popping over that way later for lunch. Will take a quick shifty.
Could be on for the first Welsh turns of 2011 early tomorrow morning before the rain returns.
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TUESDAY 15 FEBRUARY - SUNDAY 31 JULY 2011
A disappointing 2011 in S Wales. So far
No snowfall bar the odd flurry and no skiing.
Warm and dry spring and an excellent start to the summer.
However July has been wet and August looks to be following a similar pattern.
The night time temperatures have been colder than normal and the leaves are already turning and the berries are on the trees.
Hopefully this is a sign of a wild winter to come.
Bring on the Ice Age!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Mike Pow, +1. I must get out in wales somewhere this year.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Ardderchog ! 
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