Snow and wind decreased and the water level dropped 60 cm since yesterday (remember, the Baltic Sea doesn’t have tides). So the motive, an ice covered bird house looked quite different today.
To be honest, I prefer the yesterday version of the motive.
It’s not often, that Västerbottens coast – where I live – is involved in three different weather warnings, two of them of class 2:
I was out this morning to make some pictures of the high water mark. A wet business …
First I took the car and drove to Storgrundet. Big parts of the beach were under water – or rather slush. Some boats hibernating on the sandy beach were so surrounded by the sea again, but since they were safely tied they didn’t swim away.
I continued to a parking place by the riverside of the river Skellefteälven. Here I had to change to chest waders since there was 50 cm of water and wet slush on the way – to much for my rubber boots. You should know where to go since the river bank is quite steep.
Since the parking place is lower than the street and covered with at least 15 cm fresh snow it took me five minutes to drive up the snowy slope. Again and again I sticked fast and had to roll backwards to give it another try. My next car definitely will have an AWD.
Näsgrundet is a small peninsula in the Baltic Sea and quite exposed to the elements. I stood in a mixture of ice slush and water and tried to keep the lens dry since the wet snow came just from ahead with great speed. At least the waves were not too high (I only had rubber boots on). This is probably my favourite motive from today.
I love the motive on the photo above but wasn’t completely content with the image composition. So I went to the same place again, this time equipped more waterproof: Chest waders again and a rain coat over the fur trimmed winter anorak. While I shot the photo above with a 35mm lens I now used a 14-24mm wide angle lens and tried to get nearer to the motive.
Snow fall had increased and so did the wave height. It was impossible to keep the lens dry for half a second and after some minutes of trying anything was wet from a mixture of wet snow and sea spray. The ice-covered tripod started to freeze and I was afraid for my camera that looked quite soaked, so I abandoned this “photo session” and returned home.
Tomorrow the water level will be half a meter less, so these images cannot be retaken. I have to learn more about photography in really bad and wet weather.
Yesterday the Baltic Sea was open and a lonely goosander paddled through the cold, gusty wind. Meanwhile the air got colder and colder.
This morning the temperature has dropped to -25 °C and I wondered whether the Baltic Sea froze over last night. And so it did.
Since it was not only cold, but also windy I was glad about my warm parka. The highest temperature I measured here in Skelleftehamn today was -22.5 °C, but in Örviken, hardly 7 km away the car thermometer showed -30 °C.
In Kautokeino (Norway) it was much colder: -42.4 °C was measured already yesterday evening. The coldest day of this winter season in Northern Scandinavia.
If the Swedish weather forecast is right, we’ll expect -23 °C this night and -3 °C the following night. That’s 20 °C warmer within 24 hours; almost springlike. Good news for the goosander. I hope, he’s well.
Round 20 cm of new snow, still snowing / temperatures round -17 °C, still dropping – that’s a good start for a nordic winter in my opinion.
Two photos from today:
The weather on 30 December was just awful: +8 °C and rain! That’s not at all the weather that you want to present when you expect friends from Germany who want to stay here for a week full of Scandinavian winter experiences! Even New Year’s Eve it was warm, the snow on the streets turned into wet ice that was so slippery, that it was hardly possible to move without spikes under the boots. But finally the sky cleared up, we could see bright and beautiful Northern Lights and it started to get colder.
Yesterday we went to the coast and crossed the ice to the island Storgrundet. At the outside of the island the Baltic Sea was still open with one a bit of icy slush drifting on the surface.
I’ve been at the coast quite often, it’s not very special for me even if weather and ice varies. Yesterday afternoon however we made something I never did before since I’ve lived in Skelleftehamn: We grilled sausages and stick bread over open fire. It had started snowing a bit but it wasn’t too cold with temperatures round -7 °C.
5 cm of snow fell over night. Medi, Annika and I drove to Vitberget to enjoy the first cross country skiing in 2017 today. It was colder than the day before, between -10 °C and -15 °C. After we finished our tour it started to snow.
It’s great to be outdoors, it’s great to meet good friends, but the combination of that is just marvellous!
Just a photo from the last aurora 2016, two hours before midnight of New Year’s Eve.
The aurora was quite strong, colourful and vivid for some minutes. I was really glad to watch it together with some German friends that are visiting me the week round the turn of the year. Anyway I had to take a photo – the Northern Lights already were quite weak again – for the “blog records”.
The next blog post will be published next year.
Happy new year!
A single photo from Annika’s and my Christmas promenade today. In Umeå we got more rain than snow yesterday and the trail Tavelsjöleden which we walked some kilometres today was completely covered with ice. However we both had spikes under our boots and so it was easy to walk. When we left the town behind the ground started to be covered with snow – just as much for a touch of winter.
Anyway it’s definitely much too warm for winter and we need colder weather and snow. Much snow! Loads of snow!!!
It’s winter solstice today, the shortest day of the year. Sunrise 9:39, sunset 13:27 – that’s less than 4 hours of sunlight.
I tried to catch the sun when it stood highest, which is only 2.2 °C above horizon but clouds brought my plan to nought. Anyway, this is how it looked like two hours ago. The brightest hour of the shortest day.
From now on the days will grow longer and longer. At the same time the astronomical winter has started today. Hopefully winter will come soon, the last weeks have been much to warm and most of the early November snow has melted away.
Six month ago: Summer solstice – “night shot” in Skelleftehamn
Sweden is in the process of changing almost all of the coins and banknotes.
The beautiful 20-kronor banknote with the portrait of Selma Lagerlöf who wrote Nils Holgersson underbara resa already has been replaced by the equally beautiful banknote with the portrait of Astrid Lindgren who wrote Pippi Långstrump. And as you can see Nils Holgersson riding his flying goose Martin on the back of the bill has been replaced by Pippi Långstrump and her ape Herr Nilsson.
Last week I got the first of one of the new coins. The old 1 krona and 5 kronor coins are discontinued, new 1 krona, 2 kroner and 5 kronor coins have been arrived. The 10 kronor coin doesn’t change. The new coins are nice but a bit boring in my opinion. While the old coins were extremely different in size the new ones are quite similar. In the future people will have to look twice for a while when they get their change.
More information from the Swedish Riksbank: Notes and coins
When I came back from Umeå this morning the sun was still below the horizon. I’m glad that the bridge over the river Skellefteälven has a parking bay. So I could take some image of today’s pre-sunrise landscape.
Much more interesting however was the view on the bay Kallholmsfjärden which is the part of the Baltic Sea that is nearest to my house. When I left Skellefteå some days before almost the whole bay was ice covered with a thin, white snow topping. Today the sheet of ice was broken and many ice floes drifted on the surface. It looks like some larger waves had broken the ice into several parallel stripes that then broke apart into smaller ice floes.
When I passed the same place two hours later to fetch a christmas parcel most of the ice was gone, probably it had drifted into open sea.