Bawd Hall
Luxury Self-Catering

The Weather

The weather in the Lake District is often either beautiful or dramatic. Rain is necessary to keep the lakes filled and create the lush landscape, but the statistics can be misleading as the rain when it falls can be heavy. We often get beautiful sunny days, particularly in the period from March to June, when other parts of the country are covered in grey. Similarly, we often escape the worst of the winter weather, although the fells will be covered with snow. To understand the weather here, we hope that the links on this page will be helpful, or at least interesting.

Forecasts

Most forecasts are pretty unreliable as the topography of the Lake District means that the weather varies quite a lot from area to area. A good tip when planning a walk in doubtful weather is to go to the “leeward side” of the mountain district. So, if the wind is from the west, then High Street from Haweswater might be a good idea. In a south-easterly, try the north-west mountains such as the Grasmoor range. Also, unless the weather is settled, then any forecast more than a day ahead is quite likely to be wrong, particularly as regards the timing of events. That said, here are some of the most useful forecasts:

The mountain forecast is always a good starting point - below is the Met Office mountain forecast for the Lake District.

Also see the forecast by the Lake District Weatherline (this should be the same as the telephone-based service on 0844 846 2444).

Current weather

There are a number of useful webcams and weather stations in the area. A good collection of webcams can be found on the Lake District National Park Authority’s site.

For the current weather, there is a local weather station at Portinscale (near Keswick) and a webcam at Keswick (nice view of Skiddaw but not always working).

Our own weather at Mosser (about 8 miles west of Bawd Hall) can be seen here.