Average Annual Tempatures of UK Caves

Cavemud

New member
Hello fellow cavers!  I'm an American caver that has really wanted to cave across the pond since I was a kid.  I've read alot about your caves there but can't seem to find what the average yearly cave temp is there.  I'm just curious as to the difference where I cave in the US.  Where I normally cave is in the central Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania.  Temps there average about 52-54 degrees year round.  Thanks very much for any info!
 

Amy

New member
HI MUD!!! Welcome!! (hehe for those of you who can't tell I know him) uhm to stay on topic....as I said reminded me of Michigan's cave temp but maybe a bit colder. And...I don't know the temp of that.
 

SamT

Moderator
So about 10 dec, but in my experience - the dry bulb temperature of the air is not exactly what dictates how cold the cave 'feels' - its more how wet and draughty it is - coupled with the temperature of the water.  So in winter, in a wet and draughty cave, its gonna feel a hell of a lot colder, due to wind chill etc. 
 

Leclused

Active member
I always say to people (mostly non-cavers) that the  temprature in a cave is roughly the average outdoor year temprature of the location of the entrance of the cave. It is just a guideline but works in most cases all around the world.

Example
- Average temp (2011) in Belgium was 11.6 (highest ever) and measurement in some projects of my club point out tempratures between 10.4 and 11.4. So I'm wondering if we can see a temprature rise in the coming years, but to see that we need of course measurements over several  years.

Dagobert (Sc Avalon)
 

Fulk

Well-known member
SamT?s right; if you go for a bimble round the big high-level passages in a cave like Lancaster Hole of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu you?ll probably not notice much difference between summer and winter temperatures (but you might notice that in summer there?s often condensation that renders the floor very slick and slippery, while in winter the condenstion evaporates). But in a stream cave, especially one with pitches / waterfalls, conditions can get decidedly unpleasant in winter, with the water temperature at or just above freezing point. A winter trip down Diccan Pot, for example, can be a bit of a challenge.
 

pwhole

Well-known member
After spending half an hour at the Event Horizon in Titan on Saturday in a constant shower, I was 'shaking all over', to be sure. I couldn't believe how quickly I went from toasty warm to absolutely freezing. Obviously the climb back up sorted that out though. Conversely, Nettle Pot on Sunday was arguably done in colder temps outdoors, but with much less water and airflow inside, I stayed warm for the whole trip - until I got back to the entrance. Then it was pain all the way...
 

Alex

Well-known member
I normally cannot wait to get underground as conditions are normally far nicer then they are on the surface in winter.
 

graham

New member
Well, the wife came back from her digging trip on Mendip yesterday with her lips blue! Took her all evening to get warm again.

I think this had something to do with erecting scaff in a very wet aven.
 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
The average temperature varies slightly in British caves, depending on latitude. Sam's "10 degrees" is near enough to answer your question but caves in the north of England are a bit more "parky". (Now there's a word for an American to ponder on!)
 

paul

Moderator
Pitlamp said:
The average temperature varies slightly in British caves, depending on latitude. Sam's "10 degrees" is near enough to answer your question but caves in the north of England are a bit more "parky". (Now there's a word for an American to ponder on!)

Of course, the tempratures quoted are in Celsius, not Fahrenheit as our US caving neighbours are used to! 10 degrees C = 50 degrees F.
 

Amy

New member
I guess I wasn't too far off...I mentioned to Mud that felt mid/high 40's (like 7-9 c) to me but I wasn't sure and...I'm usually not a good temperature gauge. I have been freezing in 70 (around 22c) deg weather and wearing a coat in 90 (32c) deg weather so....yeah. Probably moisture, stuff there is soooo wet and I'm typically used to dryer things.

How cold is your water? Most the water here I've encountered isn't super cold...not warm but not super cold either. Oddly I remember in OFD1 not feeling cold but Swildons...I was rather cold in Swildons.
 

dunc

New member
Amy said:
How cold is your water? Most the water here I've encountered isn't super cold...not warm but not super cold either. Oddly I remember in OFD1 not feeling cold but Swildons...I was rather cold in Swildons.
Is Swildons more splashy than OFD, from what I recall OFD1 streamway is mainly walking whereas Swildons you have a pitch, a damp climb near the entrance? and is there some crawling in the water? (can't remember, been a few years) 

Various factors influence water temperature. I always remember a warm May day many years back where I went caving in two different caves in one day and felt cold in one and warm in the other - the first was a longer cave and the water had been underground a while and fed probably via smaller stream sinks and the second was a shorter cave and thus the water hadn't been underground long and was fed from a river.

So slower moving water that's been underground a while could potentially be colder but as someone mentioned above, in winter if the weather has been cold or there's snow melt then a stream cascading down a cave could be pretty chilly (brrr-ings back cold memories of a few winter trips..)
 

Fulk

Well-known member
How cold is your water?

Well ? to state the obvious, in winter it can be at about freezing point, while in summer it could be as high (?) as 12+ deg C. So the 'same' trip in summer and winter conditions could, in fact, be radically different!
 

Les W

Active member
Amy's Swildons trip was streamway all the way (Thorough wettings at the Twenty, Double Potts, below Trats, etc) Wet = colder, but OFD I was upstream from the step to Lowe's Passage and then out flood escape so the trip was mostly walking up stream (relatively low water) first then fosil stuff for the rest = much drier = much warmer.  :sneaky:
 

Les W

Active member
Amy said:
How cold is your water? Most the water here I've encountered isn't super cold...not warm but not super cold either. Oddly I remember in OFD1 not feeling cold but Swildons...I was rather cold in Swildons.

When we were doing some hydrological studies inSwildons some years back, the water in the stream was about 9˚C but the inlet below the Forty (Rolling Thunder) was consistently 16˚C.
 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
An important factor is the origin of the water. Streamways fed by surface streams ("allogenic" water) will have the widest variation from average. Autogenic ("percolation") water - that which never formed a stream but fell as rain and just soaked in - will have been underground far longer and its temperature will vary only slightly from the average.

Just out of idle curiosity I measured the temperature of an autogenic seepage inlet in Ingleborough Cave on and off over a couple of years at irregular intervals. (I only used a mercury in glass lab thermometer, so not especially accurate.) The average was 9.2 degrees but extremes were less than a degree either side.
 

Les W

Active member
We sampled water throughout Swildons for a year. Probably measured the Rolling Thunder water at least 10 times, if not more. Always around 16˚C, lowest was abot 14˚C (If I remember correctly. Need to go and check the results now).
 

Cavemud

New member
Thank you all for the information!  So your caves are just a bit colder than what I'm used to.  There are several caves I visit though that are nearly that temp because of water and air.

If I would ask a question like that on the US Caveshat forum it would have turned into a 7 page thread of faff, laugh and who knows best! 

 
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