Heavy snow across Scandinavia

Cold and snow in Sweden: December's cold weather and heavy snowfall has disrupted traffic at several airports, closed many bus and train lines and made roads barely drivable. 

  • Snow shoveling – what Swedes loath the most about winter.
  • Heavy snow - up to 1.5 feet in places - and high winds have off and on created blizzard like conditions these last two weeks in almost all of Sweden. Sweden’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) issued a class 2 storm warning out of a three-point scale already December 6. The institute measured wind gusts between 35-40 mph at weather stations in east-central Sweden. A second wave rolled in over the southern parts of Sweden early this week.

  • With up to 1.5 feet of snow in some areas (including Stockholm) and new blizzards on the way, Sweden. Photo: Bildbyrån
  • Winter wonderland? Not if you ask most Swedes...
    Shovel, shovel, and then shovel some more. It may take hours to get the car out from underneath the snow, and once you put the shovel back it starts snowing again. Does this sound familiar? Then you know what Swedish winters can be like, and this year it holds true. According to a new poll by Yougov, Swedes hate snow shoveling more than any other winter chore. Yougov asked 3,500 persons and over a fourth of them say shoveling snow is worse than both cleaning for Christmas and changing to winter tires.
    “Shoveling snow is something you simply must do, so perhaps it’s not so surprising,” says Daniel Claesson, Press Officer at the insurance company If, which ordered the poll. The poll was made in October, way before this year’s snow started falling in other words. (Small wonder that 1.5 million Swedes are fleeing to warmer countries this winter Swedes fleeing the weather)

  • “If the question had been asked today, I think we’d have an even higher percentage of people finding snow shoveling boring,” Claesson continues. “Still, we advice people to shovel their roofs and keep the area around their house clean, while at the same time be careful not to fall and hurt themselves.”

  • Nearly one in eight Swedes is only positive about the winter and sees nothing of the “discontent” but thinks winter is “just lovely”. What the poll shows is that 26% find snow shoveling the most boring winter chore, 18% say it’s cleaning for Christmas, 15% say it’s changing tires on the car, 14% say it’s Christmas shopping, and 16% say it’s something else. 12% see nothing but loveliness with winter.