Weather for Nordic countries

[ArcticBrit]

A Summary of last week's storms in northern Norway / Tromsø.. 

Monday 29th Jan whole day - Not sure why the storm was not named, often storms that only impact the far north are left without name as they impact sparsely populated areas.  An intense low reached peak intensity as it impacted the far north west of Norway with deepest pressure ~937mb. 

Highest wind gust lowland - (116mph Hekkingen Lighthouse (33msl)  - 1 hour average - 76.7mph) 

Highest wind gust mountain - (143mph Tverrfjellet, Glomfjord (930msl) - 1 hour average - Sluskjellet, Hasvik (438msl) 113mph)

There was also possibly a new record set in Sluskfjellet, Hasvik to the north east of Tromsø. The station recorded a wind gust of 138mph with 1 hour average wind speed of 113mph before it stopped recording during the worst of the storm due to damage. 

Most schools in the region were closed and quite a number of properties were damaged. Including my local shop and neighbor who lost part of his roof. All flights and ferries were cancelled in and out of the city during the day, and the high tide / storm surge associated with the storm flooded properties close to the shoreline. 

 

Tuesday 30th- Wednesday 31st Jan  - Winds squeezed ahead of a cold front associated with a low to the north (~970mb.) impacted the inland fjords of north west Norway. I assume some of the winds here were associated with mountain waves as they were quite localised, but lasted for around 5-6 hours. It was a strange system as the outer coast had lower winds than the inland fjords, which is quite rare. 

Highest wind gust lowland - (71mph Tromsø Airport (8msl)  - 1 hour average - 51mph) 

Highest wind gust mountain - (107mph Storkjølen (790msl) - 1 hour average - 85 mph)

Again flight and ferry cancellations overnight 30th into 31st Jan. More damage, especially on the south side of Tromsøya island with multiple trees down on roads. Construction sites along the eastern side of the island were damaged due to scaffolding etc folding. 

 

Thursday 1st February - Storm Ingunn - A very deep storm system (~945mb.) moved into central Norway before moving into the north as an intense blizzard. 

Highest wind gust lowland - (94mph Røst airport (3msl)  - 1 hour average - 73mph) 

Highest wind gust mountain - (139mph Sømna . Kvaløyfjellet (302msl) - 1 hour average - 122 mph (New Norwegian Record)

Schools closed, flight and ferry cancellations across the whole of central north to north west Norway. Inland areas of Finland and Sweden also seeing severe winds. As the storm moved northward it came by surprise to those out driving or walking. For example, Harstad, south west of Tromsø, went from 11mph gusts at 11am to 83mph at 12:00. During this swing, significant property damage occured, with part of the hospital roof ripped off in Harstad. In Bodø, Nordland, people were told to leave the centre of town as winds caused damage to a number of buildings.

In Tromsø there was a blizzard, with sustained winds around 55mph and gusts up to 70mph lasting a number of hours. It's hard to gauge how much snow fell, as it all drifted against buildings or over the island and back out to sea. 

A collage of news events from the storms. 

 

 

 

Edited February 5 by ArcticBrit

[Marcus_surfer]

I'll be in finnish lapland this week looking out for the aurora borealis. I think ive got a pretty good chance at the moment, the weather looks quite settled, with decent chance of clearing in the evenings. Temperatures however, look very cold with the possibly of -30°C by night and nothing much above -20°C by day.

[malby]

Another cold week with the temperature last night dropping down to -31.7C. Could get one more sub -30C again tonight before temps rise a bit on Saturday, as some cloud and light snow is forecast to move in from the NE.

[Jo Farrow]

Good to meet @ArcticBrit in Tromsø whilst awaiting the rest of the WeatherHolidays aurora group.

What a stunning place , lets see what the Lights do

[Markus03]

Warm air is currently in Finland with temperatures nearly 5 degrees. We also had 20 mm of rain last night. Temperatures will now drop to freezing which means that all the water on the road is going to get icy which means conditions are very poor whether you drive or walk.

[malby]

 Markus03 That warm air didn't quite make it up to us in central Finland so I think it is only a Southern Finland warm-up. We reached only 0.4C this morning and the temperature has already dropped below freezing again but the big news here is the snowfall figures. We have had continuous snowfall since yesterday afternoon that has deposited around 15 - 20cm of fresh, drifting snow. I'll need to dig my plough out before I can start clearing my road and yard again!

Edited February 17 by malby

[Markus03]

 malby Yes. I was talking about Southern and Western parts of Finland. Temperature here is slowly getting below freezing as well. Currently 1.1 degrees here 35 km North from Helsinki. I also noticed that at the same time in Latvia temperatures were quite high with temperatures up to 10 degrees. Unusual for the time of year.

Edited February 17 by Markus03

[Markus03]

The next low pressure that was supposed to come on Monday won't arrive. Instead it's stopping in Sweden and changes it's direction to the South. Temperatures will be up in the South next weekend and most of the low pressures will bring in rain while the North gets even more snow. Interestingly, Spring might come earlier as the wind direction comes from the South and from the ECMWF weekly model, it shows that we have warmer than average temperatures for next 4 weeks.

Edited February 17 by Markus03

[Markus03]

There will only be cold air for the next few days. Overall  the temperature for most of next week is above 0 degrees and so far all the low pressures will bring in sleet and rain in the Southern Finland. We are in the warm airmass which comes from the South. North West Europe however seems to be colder than average according to EC. Finland actually has much better chances of warmth than other Nordic countries. We are getting taste of Spring which for very early is quite unusual. Mostly you can see above 0 degrees in Mid March when Sun is helping.

[Jo Farrow]

I joined the Weather Holidays (part of Netweather group) February trip to Tromsø. There are plenty of photos in the Gallery section, near the bottom, under Aurora and Landscape. It was stunning, we drove about sightseeing by day and chased clear skies and suitable backdrops in the evening, based at an apartment in the city. 

Temperatures dipped to -16C, and at times, the wind was cruel! Other days there was bright sunshine and our hired Arctic suits and boots kept us cosy. It snowed a little, we were in awe of the studded car tyres, gripping the snow and ice as the snow ploughs did a great job, shifting the drifting snow, then throwing it in the fjord. The weather warnings include avalanche, severe icing on ships and (the current) proper snow.

[Marcus_surfer]

A little delayed but just got back from Rovaniemi, Finland. Stayed for one week in a hostel so the trip was quite affordable. Finland is such a beautiful country. I stayed about half a mile from the city centre so walking around was very easy and everthing was in walkable distance. This is my third time to Rovaniemi so i know the area very well now. Theres not much to do in the city, a small shopping centre and a few restaurants (mostly burgers and burger king!). We did a 6 mile husky ride, ice dip, sauna and outdoor jacuzzi.

Onto the most important part, the Weather! Staying for a week i was hoping i had a chance to see some heavy snowfall, the whole week was very sunny and very cold. It was quite rare to see the bright sunshine and blue skies for a whole week, there was wall to wall sunshine most days (amazing sunsets), with the occasional partly cloudy day and also freezing fog which came in most nights. The northern lights struggled to come out most nights, we had 2 or 3 nights of clear skies but no northern lights. We would walk about 6 miles into the forest and to a camp fire every night, one night we got back to the hostel and the northern lights came out, we were too tired to go back outside and get all the gear back on. Thankfully i took many photos of the beautiful northern lights last year when i was staying here.

Temperatures for the whole week were very cold, and at times, Bitter. The average day temperature was around -19°C and average overnight lows were around -25°C. There were two nights when the overnight temperatures plummeted to -31°C. It was interesting to note that this minimum temperature wasnt getting reached untill around 6am, slowly warming up to around -20°C by noon.

On the last day the morning started sunny with temperatures around -20°C. It warmed up on the last day with increasing cloud cover to around -13°C which felt much warmer. You could walk around with nothing covered on the head or face which was a nice break from wearing everything. Light snow began to spread in from the west from noon, with a slight dusting on all surfaces so it was nice to see some falling snow at least.

Snow depth was around 65cm at the Airport, while surrounding areas of the forests the snow depths were around 75cm.

Back home now to rain, wind and our outstanding beaches and green countryside!

 

 

Edited February 20 by Marcus_surfer

[malby]

 Marcus_surfer Nice report Marcus and glad you love the country (& weather here!) so much. We do too which is why we moved here. There's proper seasons, rather than the year-long autumn that the overcrowded UK suffers from! 

[Marcus_surfer]

 malby Thank you! It was funny, because passport control are getting a little concerned about my full page on my passport of in and out to the country, they joked on our exit and we talked about other places to visit in finland. I'm interested in helsinki i said, he recommended it and said to come in the summer, i said no chance not with our weather! I love SNOW! It was a great little finish to the holiday.

Edited February 20 by Marcus_surfer

[Markus03]

While Lapland has beautiful winter weather, in the South it's quite typical that there will be warm air and rain even in the middle of the Winter. Right now 0.6 degrees and for the rest of the week all of South and West Finland won't have freezing temperatures. A lot of rain on Friday too. At least 20 cm of snow is expected to melt, if not all of it in the South West. There's only around 15 cm of snow there right now. Like it's been every week, poor road conditions due to the rain coming down to already icy roads.

Edited February 21 by Markus03

[ArcticBrit]

Up here in Tromsø the warmer push of air from the south is approaching and the associated systems have dumped large amounts of snow over the region. We had a fall of 54cm within 48 hours  Sunday-Monday-early hours of Tuesday, so the city is looking quite buried at the moment. In total we have around 125cm and the snow is currently still falling outside the window today. Hopefully with plus temperatures during the day the next days we can reduce it a little, as we are way above average for the time of year. 

 

 

 

[Jo Farrow]

Storm ROLF for Denmark (Northern naming group) which developed across the North Sea overnight, as Storm Louis (Southwestern naming group) hit France and the Netherlands yesterday. (Red warning for rain in northern Italy for that today)

'Storm Rolf hits the west coast of Jutland Storm Rolf lies over the north-eastern part of the North Sea and continues north-eastwards at high speed towards Oslo.'   'Storm warning with hurricane force gusts The storm is called: Rolf. DMI Warning for a storm with wind gusts of hurricane force along the west coast of Jutland and the Skagerrak coast. As well as DMI warning gale force winds with wind gusts of strong storm force or hurricane force.'  Danish Met Institute   Yellow flood , high tide and strong winds/gust warnings for Oslo 

Edited February 23 by Jo Farrow

[Markus03]

Finland will be in the warm side of the jet stream. There's a huge dive, that's why in the UK it's cold. For the next two weeks we will have a lot of rain and temperatures are sometimes even freeze-free in Lapland. In the South all snow will most likely melt if warmth continues. EC however says that it will start to get colder by the end of next month but there won't likely be much of drop in the temperature since sun is already strong enough. I'm sure we already started the Spring season. Even if next month will be colder than normal, I doubt there will be any more -10 temperatures in the South. In the North it's still likely though. 

Edited February 23 by Markus03

[Markus03]

Low pressure arrives to Finland from the South right now. It starts as sleet but tonight in the South East rain amount could be up to 20 mm! A lot so it means there will be a lot of water on the roads due to heavy rain and snow melting at the same time. In the South West most of the low pressure will be sleet but snow depth won't increase anyway due to it being around 0 degrees. So yeah, West road of Helsinki will have more mixed rain and the East of Helsinki will have a lot of rain coming up. If you think the UK is so wet, you won't be that bad for at least today and perhaps tomorrow. Jet stream still over Sweden meaning we are still in the warmer side of the jet.

Edited February 24 by Markus03

[Markus03]

In the coming days the freezing free temperatures continue during the day. But there's freezing temperatures at night. Not very cold but still freezing. Forecast also tells that there could be high pressure next week meaning that Finland will be dry. Winds come from the South East so it's not really a beast from the East. That would need a North Easterly wind for that to happen. So in short: Cold nights, warm afternoons. The low pressure tries to move in but they move from the Baltics to Western direction over to Sweden most of the week.

[Markus03]

 Forecast for the next few days in Finland:

 

Tuesday and Wednesday have a break from rain which is needed because of it being wet with sleet on the ground. Temperatures freezing outside of Western and Southern parts of the country where temperatures in some places get to 2 degrees.

 

A few days ago it looked like the next low pressure was coming on Thursday but due to forecast changes it now misses us and goes from our South to Eastern Europe. Weather dry with temperatures mostly freezing but again in the South a few degrees of plus degrees. 

 

Even if rest of the week will have dry weather, due to many tens of centimetres of snow melting with warmer temperatures in the South, that could have some problems. 

 

[malby]

Interesting article on this winter's weather here in Finland. Surprised the meteorologist they consulted didn't recognise the potential impact of the upcoming grand solar minimum on events:

Finland's winter has been exceptionally snowy, cold and long | Yle News | Yle

YLE.FI

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While in most parts of the world the weather has been warmer than average, this winter has been snowier, colder and longer than usual in Finland.

 

[Markus03]

According to the article, mild continues? Yes for this weekend but it will actually get cold next week. However even with cold air, temperatures during the day in the South will have freeze free temperatures due to warming sun for this time of the year. 

[Jo Farrow]

Reflections on my recent visit to the Arctic Circle on a Weather Holidays trip (part of Netweather). Thanks to @ArcticBrit and Paul  and Daniel.  

The best way to see Northern Lights in Norway

WWW.NETWEATHER.TV

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Seeing the Aurora in the Arctic Circle has become a bucket list activity. What does a Weather Holidays chase tour in Norway involve, by day and night?

 

[TillyS]

I’m in Norway at the moment. There has just been a huge aurora burst which should be visible across the UK right now. I probably won’t see it in Bergen but I’m heading up to the Lofoten Islands in a few days which are supposed to be beautiful and also a great place for the northern lights.

Meantime I had a spectacular train journey yesterday from Oslo to Bergen with blizzards across the high mountains before and after Finse (1200 metres).

[TillyS]

This is so true: "Some just seem to be chasing an Instagram selfie” @Jo Farrow

 

I personally hate the term bucket list now. It seems to encourage people charging off to get their instagram / snap / tiktok 

I wish everyone would pause and savour. Go off the beaten track. Be surprised. Don’t post yourself in every photo. I mean, the landscape’s generally a lot more interesting than your own face. It’s a sad indictment of our generation.