Extreme Cold and Heavy Snow in Sweden Stalls Traffic, Including Electric Buses

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A recent spell of extremely cold weather and heavy snow in Sweden brought traffic to a standstill on a major highway, stranding hundreds of travelers.

Thousands of travelers were trapped on a main highway going through Skane County in Sweden, reports the BBC.

“People who got trapped in 1,000 vehicles in heavy snow for more than 24 hours have been evacuated, Swedish authorities say,” writes the BBC. “Rescuers worked through the night to free people stuck on the main E22 road in the Skane area of southern Sweden.”

Swedes were not the only people impacted by the extremely cold winters storm that blew into various Nordic countries in early January.

“Extreme cold weather has hit parts of Sweden, Finland, and Norway, and snow storms in Denmark have left drivers trapped on a motorway near Aarhus since Wednesday,” the BBC said. “The Kvikkjokk-Arrenjarka weather station in northern Sweden recorded its coldest night for 25 years on Tuesday night, with temperatures dropping to -43.6C.”

Some individuals are reporting even lower temperatures.

“[I]t’s being reported that a person living in Arjeplog noted a chillingly cold -49.7C (that’s -57.5 Fahrenheit) on his thermometer before it stopped working when it hit -50C,” reports Peter Imanuelsen, on the substack channel, The Freedom Corner with PeterSweden. “This is very close to being the coldest temperature ever recorded in Sweden. The record sits at -52.6C all the way back in 1966.”

The extreme cold has also created problems for public transit users in at least one Swedish city, Skellefteå, where the recorded temperature was -34℃. Skelleftea had been replacing its diesel bus fleet with electric buses, which began to fail.

“‘The electric buses will probably be removed from traffic this afternoon because they have very difficult to keep warm when in service…It is clear that the electric buses are affected the most of this extreme cold.’ said Marie Larsson, CEO at Skellefteå bus,” according to Imanuelsen.

 

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