Winter arrives in Gulmarg - Weather Update
Here is the lates weather report from Gulmarg India: We have a couple of decent storms shaping up for Gulmarg right now. Currently it is snowing hard in Gulmarg, they've gotten 11 inches at mid-mountain so far, with more coming through the night. Winds are increasing (from the SW), with more than 20 mph constant wind speed, maybe higher, up high. We'll have to see how much wind-blown snow there is, there could be a lot on the leeward side of the ridgetops and upper ridgelines. This is a warm/wet storm, with temps hovering around freezing at mid-mountain and only a couple of degrees below freezing a the summit.
There is another storm forecast for the weekend, this is a bigger storm with more then 24 inches currently forecast at the summit for Saturday and more to come for Sunday. The temps are forecast to be a lot lower on the weekend.These 2 storms should deposit a fair amount of snow. We might see some different layers in there already at the start of the snowpack and we'll need to see how impacted it all has been by wind deposition.There could be enough snow from these storms to start the formation of the snowpack in Gulmarg in my opinion. We'll see.
Therefore we will need to be monitoring the weather to see if this snow remains and how it changes. For those that have been following our reports over the years, you will know that early snow in Gulmarg (as it is anywhere else in the world), is not necessarily a good thing.
If the temps remain low and we have lot's of cold, clear nights, then we could see the formation of depth hoar at the base of the snowpack. This is a common phenomena in Gulmarg. There needs to be enough snow on the ground and the right temps for this to happen.
So, this is something we will be looking at from now on. The 3 previous storms (Sept 1st, 17th and 27th) didn't leave enough snow on the ground (plus the temps warmed up), so nearly all that snow melted out (there might still have been a decent enough accumulation of snow still at the top of the Shark's Fin area, which we will need to be wary of – there are no reports of how that show is changing, but I did see photos that showed a decent accumulation that was staying consistently shaded and cold….).
Jeelani Rather, our head guide in Gulmarg, will be out on the mountain for us, poking around and reporting back on the snow. My goal is to be able to build an idea on how the early season snowpack is shaping up (before I get to Gulmarg), as this will no doubt have long-standing impacts on the stability of the snowpack for the early season and beyond. Our monitoring program really starts to shift into second gear now, now that there should be enough snow to start the snowpack. We'll report our findings as we have them, in the mean time have a look at the snow forecast here.
If you are interested in skiing in Gulmarg, consider signing up to our Gulmar trip this winter, details are here.
