Decades-old snowfall record broken in Sweden

A 113cm layer of snow has broken a 50-year-old snowfall record in the northern Swedish city of Lulea.

Sweden
Snow is expected in Sweden, here pictured in 1947, but sometimes it surprises with its depth [Getty]

While Nordic Noir may be all the rage as a dramatic genre, it refers to a mood, a style, not the colour. In the winter, Scandinavia is anything but black. Snow is guaranteed to fall every year.

This year even more so; a 50 year old snowfall record has just been broken in the northern Swedish city of Lulea, which sits just 109km south of the Arctic Circle.

While heavy snow in February is not unusual in Lulea, on Tuesday, the city airport measured 113cm, breaking the previous record, from 1966, by 2cm.

The month started with 83cm on the ground but 20cm more fell on the first day of February and 10cm more on the following day.

This was at the end of a week when Scandinavia was under the winter storm centre around which all of Europe’s weather seemed to circulate.

Still, a Swedish record from 1926 stands; on February 28 that year, a snow depth of 327cm was measured in Kopparasen, north of the Arctic Circle.

It’s about to warm up now throughout Scandinavia. Lulea has been near its average daytime high of minus 10C but will be up to 0 Celsius for the weekend, and a few days beyond, and with a bit more snow.

Source: Al Jazeera