A day in the office

I spent a few days with my sister Kathy who works as an Avalanche observer in North Cairngorm. There is still an amazing amount of snow, even for this time of year! Her job is to collect data by digging a pit in the snow and gather information, based on snow crystal type, snow temperatures, hardness etc, and use it to give an avalanche prediction for the area. This is done every day during the winter in all weathers, even on the windiest days. You can see here the depth of snow which is still around, in this snow pit she found about 7 different layers of snow type. For further information about the Scottish Avalanche Information Service go the the website: http://www.sais.gov.uk/