Circumpolar Climate Events Map - April 2013

Helskinki Finland, April 2, 2013 (air quality) Municipal councils are not yet able to start cleaning the streets of winter grit – there is still too much ice and snow on the roads and shoulders. However, private owners can at least start their own clean-up.The start of spring is notorious for allergy and asthma sufferers as dust from winter grit is blown about the drying streets. However, a degree of relief might be found for allergy sufferers if private property owners started to tidy up in their own backyards.

Acceptable levels of air pollution have been exceeded several times over the last five days in Seinäjoki and Vaasa. On Tuesday morning the air quality was particularly bad in Seinäjoki.

“The situation is the worst in the morning,” says Seinäjoki’s municipal environment head, Pirjo Korhonen. “At night it’s well below freezing, the roads dry up and the traffic sends dust from the grit airborne.” Later in the day the air pollution eases somewhat as melting snow wets the roads, helping to keep the dust on the roads and out of the lungs of hapless pedestrians.

Clean up your own backyard
While the city will clean the streets as soon as possible, Korhonen explains that the weather conditions mean it won’t happen as soon as many would like. Meanwhile, she hopes that owners of large or windy yards or private courtyards will do their part to clean up as early as they can.

“It seems that the yards of large stores, for example, are already free of snow. When the wind blows it takes the dust with it,” says Korhonen, “so it would be desirable if that source could be cleaned up already.”

Yle

Beaufort Sea, April 2, 2013 (sea ice) The ice in Canada's western Arctic ripped open in a massive "fracturing event" this spring that spread::text like a wave across 1,000 kilometres of the Beaufort Sea. Huge leads of water - some more than 500 kilometres long and as much as 70 kilometres across - opened up from Alaska to Canada's Arctic islands as the massive ice sheet cracked as it was pushed around by strong winds and currents.
Ottawa Citizen

 

Gryllefjord, Norway, April 3, 2013 (snow) The county of Troms in Northern Norway, many villages and hamlets have been isolated for several days due to the threat of avalanches. On Tuesday several schools and daycare centers are closed. In the meantime, emergency transports will be carried out by boat.

Among the isolated hamlets are Gryllefjord and Torsken on the island of Senja. The main roads were closed three days ago, and it is uncertain when the roads will be re-opened.

Norway Post
 

Near Stockholm the sea has sunk by 45 cm, meaning that the ferries cannot moor at several of the islands in the archipelago, for risk of going aground.

 

Jamtland County, April 4, 2013 (season) Up to ten centimeters of snow are expected in parts of Sweden this weekend, meaning those longing for spring to arrive will have to keep waiting. The cold weather has kept golf courses closed and delayed the arrival of lapwings to Sweden.


"The snow will mainly reach the middle of the country. The focal point will be Jämtland and western Norrland provinces," Lovisa Andersson, a meteorologist at the weather service SMHI, tells news agency TT.

March was colder than usual in Sweden, and the first few days of April have had temperatures below average for this time of year.

Radio Sweden

Helsinki Finland, April 11, 2013 (season) Thermal spring began in Helsinki on April 2, says the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). It defines thermal spring as when the mean daily temperature rises permanently above 0° C. Other parts of southern Finland are expected to follow suit within the next few days.

“Thermal spring is usually the shortest of Finland’s seasons, typically lasting six to eight weeks,” says Yle meteorologist Toni Hellinen.

He points out that thermal spring does not necessarily mean days will be warm, though. Nights remain quite cold and the mean temperature may be just barely above freezing.

First night above zero?
“However the subzero nights will end soon,” Hellinen adds.

“Temperatures may remain above zero in some parts on Thursday night, or over this weekend at the latest.”

Spring proper should begin soon although the forecasts call for chilly, cloudy and rainy weather, he says. The rain is good news.

"Rain speeds up the melting of snow and also improves the air quality, particularly in cities such as Helsinki where street dust has again been a problem,” he notes.

Here comes the flood. The protracted cold weather has also delayed spring flooding by nearly a month. The Uusimaa region, which includes the Helsinki area, should see the first signs of flooding this weekend.

“At the moment there is significantly more snow on the ground than normally, 110-130 millimetres, which is locally nearly twice as much as usual. This of course indicates that there will be larger than usual spring floods,” says Kari Rantakokko, the senior environmental official at the Uusimaa Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment.

He expects flood peaks to occur in late April. The more quickly temperatures rise, the higher flood levels will be. The Uusimaa Centre has already begun stepped-up monitoring of rivers around the region.

“There’s solid ice with a thickness of about 60 centimetres on most of these rivers,” Rantakokko says. “Of course we’re a bit worried about this ice forming dams, but we hope that the thawing will take place slowly enough that they don’t form.”

Still driving to Hailuoto. Meanwhile near Oulu, the ice road across to Hailuoto Island is still open, the latest in the spring since 1997. Road officials opened the 10-kilometre route on January 5 this year. The speed limit on the ice road is 50 kilometres an hour, and there is a weight limit of two metric tons. Hailuoto has a year-round population of just under 1,000.

Ule

Read more: CBC

Winnipeg Manitoba, April 15, 2013 (seasonal) Manitobans groaned as they slogged through another spring snowstorm on Monday. The late-season storm, stirred up by a low pressure system in North Dakota, has brought five to 10 centimetres of snow to much of southern Manitoba, including Winnipeg."With that comes very strong winds. We'll see northeasterly winds gusting to 60 km/h today," CBC weather specialist Marilyn Maki said Monday morning. "So that is definitely going to cause some visibility problems on the highways."A late-season storm is being stirred up by a low pressure system in North Dakota. (Claudine Richard-Beaudoin/CBC) It's already wet and slushy on the roads and highways officials say conditions deteriorate as you move into the eastern half of the province.

That's where the heaviest snowfall is happening as the low pressure system tracks into northerwestern Ontario.

This snow is exactly what the Red River Valley doesn't need.

Jeff Makowski, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, said Fargo is already looking at major flooding this spring and is now facing a fresh dumping of possibly 30 centimeters of snow by the end of the storm.

So much snow was falling in North Dakota that both Interstate 29 and Interstate 94 were closed on Monday morning.

Hydro problems

Also on Monday, thousands of Manitoba Hydro customers in Winnipeg were without power following several hydro pole fires in the Fort Richmond, St. James and West Kildonan neighbourhoods.

The first fire started at about 7 a.m., plunging Fort Richmond residents into darkness for a few hours.

Hydro spokesman Glenn Schneider said the heavy snow has been causing the fires.

"That can act … to break down the insulation value of the equipment, the insulators on the line, and therefore the current on the conductor can reach the wood pole or the cross arm and a fire can start," Schneider said.

Blowing the budget

The City of Winnipeg is expecting to be way over budget when it comes to snow removal this year.

The budget for the calendar year is $26.2 million. By the end of February, the city had already spent $26 million.

A city spokesperson said they expect to be over budget by about $5.3 millions by the time the numbers from March are added.

Frustrated farmers

Farmers in southern Manitoba are wincing at all the latest snow.

Last year many producers had all their crops planted by now. This year they have no clue when they'll get on the land.

Doug Chorney, president of the Keystone Agricultural Producers, the largest farm lobby group in the province, said if farmers can't get their crops planted in early May they will see reduced yields.

If the snow lasts too long, some crops may not be planted.

"Like every farmer, we're getting concerned. It's very late in the year for all this snow to be on the ground, and then to get more precipitation creates concern about when we're going to get on the land and what this will do to flood risk," he said.

 

Western Finland, April 18, 2013 (flooding) Backed-up ice floes on many rivers are pushing water into fields, residential areas and roads. The Environmental Administration’s lead hydrologist Bertel Vehviläinen says that, with the exception of the Loimijoki river in the south-west, the situation now looks to be improving.Bertel Vehviläinen, the senior hydrologist at the Finnish Environment Institute, says this is the most challenging spring flooding situation in western Finland in many years. For instance, flooding around the River Lapua is the worst since 1984, he says.

In Lappfjärd, Kristinestad (Kristiinankaupunki in Finnish), officials are battling an ice dam that is about a kilometre long.

On Thursday, they called in the Finnish Defence Forces to blow up the dam, which helped ease the flooding. Waters have also risen surprisingly quickly around the Perhonjoki near Kokkola, but Vehviläinen says those waters pose no threat to buildings as yet. Vehviläinen warned that additional rain on Thursday might, however, affect the situation.

Some houses in Lappfjärd that were still being repaired after flooding last October have again been inundated.

In the town of Huittinen, cellars are flooded and roads closed due to flooding. More rain is expected on Thursday, further pushing up water levels.

See more: Ule