As of Wednesday evening, spring has officially arrived in Gothenburg, Malmö, Lund, Helsingborg, Halmstad, Visby, Karlskrona and Mariestad, according to Sweden’s national weather agency SMHI.

By their definition, it’s spring when average daytime temperatures stay above freezing for seven days in a row.

You then count backwards, so spring started on the first day of that week – meaning that the above towns were able to welcome spring as early as February 15th.

Sweden’s method of measuring seasons means not only that it can be several seasons on the same day in different parts of the country, but that some locations sometimes skip an entire season.

The long-term trend is for spring to arrive earlier and earlier as a result of climate change, but February 15th is formally the earliest date it can arrive. Before then it’s either winter or autumn.

Readers living in central or northern Sweden will have to wait a bit longer.

Spring normally reaches central Sweden by March and northern Sweden by April.