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Six reasons to hate Midsummer in Sweden

While most Swedes are bursting with excitement ahead of their traditional Midsummer celebrations, contributor Anderson Harris explains why he thinks this über-Swedish tradition leaves something to be desired.

Six reasons to hate Midsummer in Sweden

Midsummer Mania is here again, and frankly, I’m sick of it.

Every year it’s the same old blathering on about the sill, snaps, and strawberries – what we’ve been drilled to understand as the requisite ingredients for any proper Midsummer celebration.

And then there is the weather, always with the damned weather.

Lord knows residents in this forlorn land on the frozen peripheries of Europe talk enough about the freakin’ weather during the rest of the year.

Related photo gallery: Things to hate about Midsummer in Sweden

But in the weeks leading up to Midsummer, the prognosticating and pontificating about Sweden’s oft dismal weather reaches a positively fever pitch.

And the Swedish press is more than willing to participate in preying on Swedes’ penchant for planning and their near-pathological obsession with what may be falling from the sky.

“Soggy weather for Midsummer this year”

“Here is where you’ll find the best weather on Midsummer”

“Get ready to spend Midsummer inside”

This year, the only thing that has been blown more out of proportion by newspapers in Sweden than the chances of Midsummer sun were the national football team’s chances at Euro 2012.

It’s as if Swedes and Swedish newspaper believe they can simply, by sheer force of will and hopeful expectations, bring about the desired result – whether it be in the skies or on the football pitch.

Sorry Swedes, but as far as I know, there is no correlation between the number of newspaper articles promising good weather and the certainty of sunny skies on Midsummer.

Yet, after all these years, Swedes still don’t seem willing to accept this reality.

Of course, weather-related hand-wringing is just one of the Midsummer traditions in Sweden that I would gladly see tossed out like a jar of rotten herring (oh wait, I forgot, in Sweden, people eat rotten herring).

So whether you love Midsummer like Swedes loves their snaps, or, like me, loathe it with a passion most Swedes reserve for sporting losses to Norway or Finland, be sure to check out the gallery below detailing the six reasons to hate Midsummer in Sweden.

Anderson Harris

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WEATHER

Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

Blizzards in Denmark this week have resulted in the greatest depth of snow measured in the country for 13 years.

Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

A half-metre of snow, measured at Hald near East Jutland town Randers, is the deepest to have occurred in Denmark since January 2011, national meteorological agency DMI said.

The measurement was taken by the weather agency at 8am on Thursday.

Around 20-30 centimetres of snow was on the ground across most of northern and eastern Jutland by Thursday, as blizzards peaked resulting in significant disruptions to traffic and transport.

A much greater volume of snow fell in 2011, however, when over 100 centimetres fell on Baltic Sea island Bornholm during a post-Christmas blizzard, which saw as much as 135 centimetres on Bornholm at the end of December 2010.

READ ALSO: Denmark’s January storms could be fourth extreme weather event in three months

With snowfall at its heaviest for over a decade, Wednesday saw a new rainfall record. The 59 millimetres which fell at Svendborg on the island of Funen was the most for a January day in Denmark since 1886. Some 9 weather stations across Funen and Bornholm measured over 50cm of rain.

DMI said that the severe weather now looks to have peaked.

“We do not expect any more weather records to be set in the next 24 hours. But we are looking at some very cold upcoming days,” DMI meteorologist and press spokesperson Herdis Damberg told news wire Ritzau.

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