ArcticBrit

Up here in Tromsø it’s been incredibly sunny the last weeks. Dry easterlies but fairly cold. Maximum temp so far this year was on 10th April at 7.8°C, but the last week temps have struggled to reach 3°C during the day and fall well below freezing overnight. Still over 60cm snow in the garden but roads are clear now thankfully. View from the office today

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.

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.

We are getting the blizzard associated with Ingunn here in Tromsø. This is the third time this week the city has been cut off with closed airport and all boat routes cancelled. Current situation outside my house is this …. FullSizeRender.MOV

Still holding onto the cold up here in the north with temperatures around -5C, and a number of polar lows over the last week bringing a messy snow situation. The snow depth is up to 87.5 cm officially in Tromsø, drifts are a lot deeper than that. In the south there has been chaos, firstly because of the cold temperatures closing schools and snow storms blocking roads. Not to mention the cold causing the electric bus system to grind to a halt (big discussion now in Norway as to why there was no plan B for such a cold outbreak). Secondly because of the recent warm up causing icy roads, people were warned to stay home on Monday due to the difficult conditions, and today again busses have been at a standstill in Oslo because of unusually icy roads. Back to up here in the north, it looks as though the cold will come to a halt this weekend as waves of strong winds and rain move in over the weekend, then early next week is a messy combination of settling snow by night and sleet by day. Although this is fairly normal for the time of year here. In other news, the sun finally returned on Sunday, officially ending polar night in Tromsø! And we have had some really nice aurora the last days (bad iphone pic), hopefully more to come before the bad weather this weekend.

Heavy snowfall in Tromsø yesterday, some more showers this evening. Gained maybe 30cm, so over a metre in total on the ground in the garden (photo), which is impressive given the big melt earlier in the week. Stunning daytime light here today though viewed from the office at midday, and the return of the sun is just around the corner!

A horrendous early week here with the worst weather taking place on Monday. Sunday night into Monday we received 40cm new snow, but by evening the temperature rose to +4 C with torrential rain. Nearly everything became flooded within a short space of time, as the snow piles on the sides of the road act as a kind of 'dam', blocking in the water. On top of that there were some large avalanches triggered due to the warm up, with a tourist bus narrowly missing impact and some communities (such as Hammerfest) cut off. Finally I see some snow flakes in the air again this morning.......winter resumes.

Heavy snowfall finally starting to abate in the south of Norway and Sweden, but not before causing many problems. Up here in northern Norway, the Kautokeino station (Guovdageaidnu) has just slipped to -42.6°C, the coldest January temperature at the station since the all time record set in January 1999 (-50.3°C). Weird to think that in just 4-5 days the temperature is expected to rise to 0.... with rain for us on the coast. Swedish snow chaos leaves 1,000 vehicles trapped on main E22 road WWW.BBC.COM The army is called in to help drivers in southern Sweden amid a big freeze across the Nordic countries.

Yes I travel through Karesuando with work a few times a year and it always amazes me how cold it can get there along the E8 road. It's a shame we don't have more official stations in the remote arctic areas, but also understandable given the upkeep challenges. Here's an update on the snow situation in south Norway. Schools starting to close and things shutting down a bit... it's fairly unprecedented to get so much snow along the south east coastline this early in the winter, in some places around Arendal it's the highest snow depth since records began in 1977. (May need to use a translator to read the article). Har satt krisestab i flere kommuner: Ber folk ha hjemmekontor WWW.NRK.NO Agder kan få ytterligere opptil 40 cm snø frem til onsdag kveld. Flere kommuner har satt krisestab og stenger første skoledag. Nå innstilles postlevering og søppelhenting.

I think both the -40 readings appear to be border or Sweden then. I see the WMO station in Nikkaluokta, Sweden is -41.4 degrees C and Karesuando on the Swedish/Finnish border is -40.9. SMHI - Observationer Sverige | SMHI WWW.SMHI.SE

A cold Christmas and start to the new year up here in northern Norway. Went for a drive inland last night and the temperature was down to -34 in the valleys. I see this morning a number of stations in far northern Sweden and Finland hitting the -40 mark. Meanwhile in the far south it's all over national news this morning about snow chaos south west of Oslo around Arendal and Kristiansand. Some areas have received around 50-60cm over a 24 hour window, with warnings for a further 30-40cm over the next 2 days. Hoping for some kind of warm up to more average temperatures soon, December was the third month in a row of below average temperatures in Tromsø.

Klokka In Norwegian you say 'the clock is ... whatever time it is' This weekend was hectic here, characterized by fluctuating temps from -1 to +4, very heavy snow / sleet/ rain and hail showers. Quite frequent lightning on Saturday night as thunder snow showers ploughed in from the coast. The strongest wind gust on the coast here was 36.9m/s, so just over 82mph. A calmer week ahead with snow showers or longer periods of snow heading into the Christmas period thankfully.

Thanks Originally west London, but also grew up part of my life in Lincolnshire. Lived in Svalbard for a time while studying but moved south to Tromsø in early 2015. We just had this warning issued from MET Norway. Looks like an exciting weekend coming up.

The stable cold is about to end here in Arctic Tromsø. Tomorrow very strong wind gusts from the south and plus temperatures will creep in, meaning a period of freezing rain. Then strong west/ north westerlies on Sunday with sleet and snow showers. The snow trucks are digging up the ice along the roads in preparation for it today, making a racket outside of the office. Thankfully it cools down again next week with snow for the Christmas period. Yesterday was stunningly beautiful though as the sky filled with type 1 polar stratospheric clouds. They turned polar night almost into daytime, a welcome sight before this stormy weather moves in.

A blustery weekend just passed up here, in some areas winds were gusting up to 60mph with temps of -11 Another week of cold temperatures coming up,but with a potential warm up on the weekend with maybe some rain. This is fairly normal for the time of year, locals call it the 'kakelinna', a warm period just before Christmas which is jokingly blamed on too many people baking things before the festive season. If only it were that simple. Photo of the aurora we have whenever skies are clear at night, the brightest time of the day (the blue hour) and blowing snow off roofs from the weekend in the centre of town. IMG_9572.mp4