Deep Freeze Wales
Photo: Dawn view from Pen Y Fan over a frozen Welsh landscape in record setting cold temperatures Sunday, November 28 2010
The Russians have been kind enough to send an express delivery of Siberian wind from the east to the UK. The results sent temperatures plummeting and brought the earliest widespread winter storms since 1993. Saturday night saw Wales with the coldest temperature in the UK at -17 degrees Celsius, somewhere towards the left horizon of the above photo, about 20 miles north from Pen Y Fan. However I didn’t know any of this when I thought I would head to the hills for sunrise on Sunday. All I knew was that clear weather was forecast and hoped for a good sunrise.
So instead of taking shelter in a warm house, I set the alarm for 4:45 am; intent on heading up Pen Y Fan for sunrise. Waking in the darkness of early Sunday morning I checked the outdoor thermometer, -11.5. Hmm, better take another jacket today. I hit the trail a little after 6 am, the dawn glow barely visible above the mountains in the east. It was eerily silent as I walked through the dark and frozen world, the crunching of snow beneath my feet the only sound. The wind arrived once I hit the ridge and was exposed to the east. Brutally cold, and a shock for November in what should normally be the mild weathered UK. A low bank of clouds in the southeast blocked most the color of the sunrise unfortunately, but the views were still amazing and the air amazingly clear.
Photo: View from Pen Y Fan across Brecon Beacons national park towards the Black Mountains in the west
Photo: Hiker on summit of Corn Du overlooking a frozen landscape
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