Snowdon route wind Beta

Compare terrain exposure across seven routes. A controlled study, not a live forecast.

Llanberis Path

Walker-height mean wind, mph. Colours show the strongest sampled wind in each short section.

Under 1515–2425–3435–4445+

Move map

Compare routes

40 mph reference wind from SW. Values below are at walker height.
Route	Average mph	Exposed mph	Max mph
Llanberis Path	31	40	41
Pyg Track	17	39	41
Miners’ Track	16	38	41
Snowdon Ranger	29	40	41
Rhyd Ddu	26	39	41
Watkin Path	19	40	41
Snowdon Horseshoe	26	40	41

Exposed is the wind exceeded along the windiest 5% of the sampled route. Max is the highest modelled point, not a gust. A low average can hide a short exposed ridge.

Estimated wind load (kgf)

An illustrative horizontal wind force on a waterproofed walker with a large pack. This is not a prediction of losing balance or a safe wind limit.

Distance-weighted average and maximum estimated force
Route	Average kgf	Max kgf
Llanberis Path	11.9	20.0
Pyg Track	5.7	20.0
Miners’ Track	4.9	20.0
Snowdon Ranger	11.3	20.0
Rhyd Ddu	9.0	19.9
Watkin Path	6.4	20.0
Snowdon Horseshoe	9.9	20.0

Assumes 0.85 m² frontal area, drag coefficient 1.15 and air density 1.2 kg/m³. Posture, pack, clothing and wind direction relative to the body change the load. One kgf is approximately 9.81 newtons.

How to read this beta

These are approximate winds across a walker-equivalent layer from 0.2 to 2 m above ground. Each scenario uses the same steady background wind across the terrain. It does not include today's weather, changing winds, a forecast elevation profile or gusts.

Compare where exposure changes, rather than choosing a route by the lowest number. The Snowdon Horseshoe includes serious scrambling terrain. Route lines are for orientation, not navigation; check a current route guide, access and the live forecast.

Terrain, calculations and limitations

A 13 km by 13 km terrain box covers all seven supplied tracks with at least 1.5 km to the edge. The 4 m bare-earth grid is averaged from surveyed 1 m Welsh Government LiDAR. No missing cells are filled with a flat substitute.

The study uses WindLab's version 2 neutral linear terrain response, with its current near-ground shelter and surface-flow treatment. These additional shelter and direction treatments remain experimental. No Cairn Gorm station-specific adjustment is applied to Snowdon. This is not a resolved computational-fluid-dynamics simulation or an independently verified Snowdon route forecast.

Directions are relative to British National Grid north. Route samples are spaced at approximately 4 m and matched in the same projected grid as the terrain. Averages are weighted by distance across each supplied track, including return sections. Display sections are approximately 20 m long and use their maximum sampled value. The 30 mph case scales the 40 mph result by 0.75; force is calculated at each sample before averaging because drag depends on wind speed squared.

Uniform short-grass roughness is used for comparison. Real rock, scree, heath, trees and snow change near-ground flow. Steep edges, turbulence and shelter immediately behind rocks are not reliably resolved. Four-metre terrain detail does not imply four-metre forecast accuracy.

Terrain: Welsh Government LiDAR, containing public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Route geometry: BRouter-derived tracks using OpenStreetMap data. Background to the drag calculation.

Download the study values and model version details.