Snow and severe cold forecast for Sweden

Snow and temperatures well below freezing are expected to hit Sweden over the next few days with forecasters warning of a “snow cannon” ready to fire over the country.

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“Northeastern winds are sweeping in over the Baltic building up snow flurries, and as these hit the coast they will gather momentum, causing heavy snowfall,” said Emil Björck, meteorologist at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI).

Forecasters believe that the gathering storm may bring up to 30 centimetres of snow to some parts of the country. SMHI has so far issued a Class 2 warning for Kalmar county.

A Class 2 warning is classified as weather, which could pose a danger to the public, cause major damage to property and major disruptions in essential services.

According to the meteorologists, the phenomenon of snow gathering force in this way occurs when cold air moves over the ocean, picking up humidity from the warmer seawater. The snow flurries then move in over land and increase in intensity due to the chill.

“It is a little bit like a snow cannon, you take humid air and spray it into a cold environment, making it freeze very fast and fall to the ground,” Björck explained to TT.

Forecasters predict snow to fall all along the eastern coastline over the next few days.

On the Baltic island of Gotland, in Stockholm and straight across the coastal counties they promise heavy snowfall toward the end of the week.

As the snow cannon has unloaded all its ammunition over the country by the weekend, temperatures are expected to drop to below -10 Celsius in southern Sweden.

“In the north we can expect -20 and below,“ Björck told TT.

The icy temperatures in the very north of Sweden have recently made the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia freeze over, according to local paper Västerbottenskuriren.