Real winter in Sweden now

[Micael]

I hear some places in the world are having unusually mild weather this winter. Not so in Sweden. This is shaping up to be one of the snowiest, coldest winters in a while. The cold isn’t too bad where I’m at right now, but it’s been snowing a fair bit and traffic suffers as a result. Slippery as hell even with studded winter tires.

Much worse both up north and down south, for different reasons. One place up north hit -43.6C (-46F) last night, and at those temperatures it’s starting to become genuinly problematic. Trains and buses cancelled because they don’t dare risk a break down where the passengers become icesickles before help can arrive and so forth.

Meanwhile, down south there’s massive snow chaos. 300+ cars stuck on the E22 for most of the day, military starting to get involved in the rescue effort, everyone being urged to not go out on any road unless absolutely necessary and so on.

So it’s shaping up to be a fun one this!

Now awaiting the response from the southern hemisphere dudes explaining how it’s a bazillion degrees where they’re at.

[Nightwatch2]

That would be a Brazilian degrees…

[Micael]

That would be a Brazilian degrees…

True, where’s Gral at?

Also, now they’re saying it’s possibly 1,000 vehicles stuck in the chaos on the E22. What a mess.

[Pdf27]

Exceptionally wet here - starting to get flooding locally which is pretty rare.

[Zen9]

While Britain and Ireland are famously 'rainy countries', it does seem we're getting a lot of wet weather this year.
Not that cold yet.

[David Newton]

Well we're literally at the point of switching away from wet and rainy to cold and dry. The last storm for a while has come through so the rivers should get a little bit of a respite to go down somewhat.

[Belushi TD]

We had our wettest December ever, mainly due to two large storms that dropped something like 5 and 4 inches of rain each, and a couple other days of wetness.

We're now looking at 5 to 8 inches of snow Saturday night, which will, should it happen, exceed the TOTAL snowfall of either of the previous two winters. (About 5 inches each)

Belushi TD

[gral]

That would be a Brazilian degrees…

True, where’s Gral at?

Also, now they’re saying it’s possibly 1,000 vehicles stuck in the chaos on the E22. What a mess.

Eh, right now things aren't that bad - most days have had temperatures in the low thirties(°C), with apparent temperatures in the upper thirties to the lower forties. Definitely uncomfortable, but not too bad. The real hell - temperatures in the lower forties, with apparent temperature in the upper forties to lower fifties - are expected for this month. La Niña is on, so temperatures should be higher(they probably are, on the average of the period), although La Niña also means lower humidity here.

As for weather-related hazards, biggest problem here this time during summer are landslides caused by rain - the stereotypical Rio de Janeiro summer day is sweltering heat(even during the night - street thermometers indicating 29-30°C at 3 AM are usual), with downpours at early evening, from late October/early November to late March/early April(that's why Tom Jobim sang of 'the waters of March bringing Summer to a close'). Temperatures go down to a more comfortable level by late April/early May.

[Micael]

They finally managed to get all the motorists in cars off the E22 a short while ago, after 24 hours. A whole bunch of empty cars are left as well as 200 trucks with drivers, who’ve opted to stay with their trucks. The road might open again tomorrow morning, unclear how long it’ll take to sort everything out.

[Micael]

I’ve got to say that my fellow Homeguard peeps down there seems to have been on top of things, a company got the call from higher up in the chain of command at 3:09 AM that they needed to deploy all terrain vehicles to assist. They arrived at 3:35 AM. That’s a genuinly impressive response time.

[Drunknsubmrnr]

We had our wettest December ever, mainly due to two large storms that dropped something like 5 and 4 inches of rain each, and a couple other days of wetness.

We're now looking at 5 to 8 inches of snow Saturday night, which will, should it happen, exceed the TOTAL snowfall of either of the previous two winters. (About 5 inches each)

Belushi TD

That’s up in the hills though. Down here in Baja Hoboken at sea level we’re getting more rain. I don’t think we’ve had 2” of snow in the last couple of years.

[MikeKozlowski]

I’ve got to say that my fellow Homeguard peeps down there seems to have been on top of things, a company got the call from higher up in the chain of command at 3:09 AM that they needed to deploy all terrain vehicles to assist. They arrived at 3:35 AM. That’s a genuinly impressive response time.

Micael,

That is damned impressive. The troops have every reason to be proud of themselves, and the citizens proud of them.

Mike

[JBG]

After early forecasts of hot and dry, the east coast and southeast have been mostly mild and often wet, with more rain to come. Sydney in early January is more like mid-spring.

Jonathan

[Craiglxviii]

Not a million miles from me; driving down some back roads on my way home I ran into this (quite literally, the road was flooded 200mm+ just beyond the other side of a roundabout, I had to do a very awkward turn back); added 1.5 hours and 47 miles of detours to my journey.

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IMG_5564.jpeg

This bottom image shows what was a caravan & campsite until the day before. Over 1000 caravans flooded out. For the locals, the road above it is the A45 dual carriageway running past Northampton (and the campsite is Billing Aquadrome).

[JBG]

With a name like that I am surprised that the campsite is meant to be dry!

Jonathan

[Micael]

I was over at my parents’ place for the weekend, dipped down to -22C (-8F), which is manageable but I’d prefer not to have it go lower with the relatively high humidity we get in these parts of the country. Just like with hot weather, the humidity makes all the difference as to how bearable it is. Looking like slightly higher temperatures for the next little bit here so hoping for that.

[Pdf27]

The civil war forts are coming out to play though!