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WEATHER

Train traffic stalled as storms hit Sweden

UPDATED: Heavy rainfall in central Sweden on Sunday has seen train and road traffic grinding to a halt and over 100 homes evacuated.

Train traffic stalled as storms hit Sweden
Stockholmers in a very wet capital. File photo: TT
Weather agency SMHI issued 13 class-1 warnings for wet  and windy weather on Sunday as storms spread eastwards across the country. 
 
Stockholm county was specifically singled out, with the agency noting that it and several nearby counties could expect up to 50 mm of rainfall on Sunday. 
 
The morning saw over 100 homes evacuated in Hallsberg, near Örebro in central Sweden, with emergency services noting that water levels inside some people's houses had reached “around a metre” in depth. 
 
Pictures in Swedish media have shown people travelling down residential roads in canoes, or wading waist deep.
 
Train traffic between Hallsberg and Laxå ground to a halt too, leaving rail and road traffic between Gothenburg and Stockholm delayed.
 

Firemen in Mariefred, near Stockholm, on Sunday where many roads were closed. Photo: TT
 
Many areas in central Sweden were hit hard too, with Hjortkvarn recording 97 mm of rain over a 24-hour period, noted SMHI on Sunday morning. 
 
In Kumla, central Sweden, one resident was no doubt left in panic after getting stuck in a flooding elevator. 
 
Local emergency services rescued the Swede, telling the TT news agency that the situation was “terribly unnerving”.
 
Meanwhile, around 50 cellars so far have been reported to have flooded, with Stockholm emergency crews also contacted about flooding homes. 
 
Up north, the weather is even wilder, with Låktatjåkko mountain station near Björkliden in Swedish Lapland reporting the season's first snowfall on Friday.

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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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