Information on Morocco

The difficulty with the internet now is that there is so much information "out there" that is possible to spend hours trawling through various websites to find exactly what you're looking for! 

Morocco for example. Well stop looking! If it's mountains or trekking related our 2 websites should suffice:-

ToubkalMountainGuides.com (for Toubkal area obviously) and NomadicMorocco.com (for the Western High Atlas and Mgoun regions).

If it's culture, news, information, observations, articles, Fes, Fes festivals, U2 (our old class mates - yes it is true - look at the "U2 by U2" book to see a photo of Des Clark standing beside David Evans, aka The Edge!) - whatever you need to know of Morocco on the internet can be pretty much found on the Riad Zany blog "The View from Fez".

Check it out, learn lots and save yourself grief and time!

North Atlantic oscillation and the Moroccan High Atlas

A recent client of ours on a ToubkalMountainGuides trip where we endured fresh deep snow (yes we are talking about the Moroccan High Atlas!), reminded us of the North Atlantic oscillation. Of course!

So here's the Wikipedia link for some light reading. Certainly it would appear from the winter of 2008/9 that the NAO index is low. Westerlies are suppressed and cold winters and storms track southerly toward the Mediterranean Sea. This brings increased storm activity and rainfall to southern Europe and North Africa.

Oh yes!

Have we turned a corner?

After last week's (record) rainfall in Morocco and snowfall in the High Atlas mountains including Mgoun, Tinergwet and Toubkal, there is at last sunshine and warmer temperatures! 

Taroudant mid-day to-day recorded 36 degrees with some 12 degrees lower in the shade. The forecast is for predominantly settled weather although some clouds Monday may bring some light rain to places.

Last weeks snow fell as low as 1600m on south facing aspects and 1200m on the northside. Temperatures this week though have meant a lot of this lower snow has melted and the snowlines have receded on both sides by around 800m.