It looks like winter has come back to Tromsø. At four o’clock the temperature fell below zero, at 17:30 the first heavy snow shower arrived and at 22:00 we got wind gusts up to 18 m/s. It’s not a lot of snow that fell, but the wind gusts take the snow from the ground and blow it through the streets in metre high clouds. Winter parka time, at least when I took this photo.
And suddenly it looks wintry again in Tromsø. About 30 cm of snow fell in the last two days. Yesterday I walked home from work, today I took the skies.
It is so much fun to ski through the wintry forests on the top of the island Tromsøya even when the snow is as warm and sticky as today.
Annika and I are in Obbola, my “home home”. In the morning we get visitors. Three deer stand in our garden – always alert. Are they happy, that much of the snow is gone?
In my lunch break I am kayaking round the island Bredskär. That’s just 3 km. There is still some ice round the rocks at the shore, but much snow and ice has melted away the last weeks. What a warm winter.
Annika and I take the car to Tromsø. We will make a stopover in Jokkmokk, because the total distance is almost 1000 km. Hejdå home home!
In warm and sunny weather we head northwards to Piteå and then northwest to Jokkmokk. Now we are north of the Polar Circle.
In Jokkmokk we meet a good friend and take a walk round the lake Talvatissjön. Around the sun a halo appears .
After a good sleep in the hostel Åsgård Annika and I continue our car trip. Gällivare, Kiruna, Abisko. Torneträsk – the 6th largest lake in Sweden – is still completely frozen. Good for recreation such as skiing.
Parts of the road were closed some days ago. You can still see some remains of the snow storm.
Some weeks ago it would have been impossible to drive from Jokkmokk to Tromsø in daylight. Anyhow two days ago astronomical spring has started and the days are as long as everywhere. After hours of driving the sun is low but visible. It illuminates the beautiful clouds. And then we arrive at our apartment in Tromsø, my “work home”.
On Sunday the weather gets nasty. Max temperature: +9 °C and wind gusts up to 23.5 m/s. Annika and I take a promenade anyhow. With spiked shoes because some of the ways are just bare, wet ice and the friction is next to zero. We arrive at home before the rain. Good luck.
On my way to work I spot the first spring flowers in front of the Tromsø Cathedral. I could believe in spring …
… but do know the forecast and it is correct: Snow, snow, snow on the next day. So it looks like in the morning outside of the apartment …
… and so in the afternoon, when I walked home.
So we did not solely travelled between countries but also between seasons. Anyhow I hope for some more winter days (or weeks), before my seasonal clock will jump to spring mode. Perhaps in mid-May?
Finally it got more wintry the last days and especially today it snowed quite a lot. After work I took the bus to the lake Prestvannet where Annika and I met. From there we skied most of the way home and then walked the rest in the streets.
The skiing took quite some time because snow was warm and so sticky that it glued itself to the skis in thick layers again and again. Anyhow we enjoyed being outdoors and sharing this winter afternoon. It was the very first time that I used skis to get home after my work at the Norwegian Polar Institute, but definitely not the last time.
At home another outdoor activity awaited me: clearing snow in front of my apartment. 25 cm of fresh snow had fallen – surprisingly fluffy for the warm temperatures. Of course the snowplough passed after I had finished. Well, I’ll do that tomorrow …
This night more snow will come but then according to the forecast it will turn more and more into sleet and rain, because another warm period awaits us. Strange winter this year.
When I woke up this morning another 20 cm of snow have fallen within the last 12 hours. Looking out of the living room window and through the glass door of a balcony showed snowy landscapes amidst the town of Tromsø.
At half past nine I start a ski tour, right from my place in Tromsø. My photo task for today: show at least a human artefact on each photo, not only snowy trees.
The snowploughs haven’t been there so I can ski on the streets.
The gravel road to the ski jump is covered with snow, but the cross-country skiing trail has already been prepared. I however want to ski off the beaten tracks. I follow a snow covered trail to the pond and take some photos. That takes a bit of time because the light is so dim that I use a tripod. Remember: we still have polar night for some days.
Then I leave the trail. I immediately sink into the fresh snow up to my knees – with my skis on. And so it continues. The skis are under half a metre of loose snow and sometimes I sink deeper with each step. My ski poles sometime sink in the whole way despite the large snow baskets. That makes skiing pretty exhausting. I follow a snow-covered stream that leads my to a jagged terrain with small but deep gullies. Some of them are three metres deep and impossible to cross for me. Where am I? Is this still Tromsøya? I zigzag through the hilly and snowy forest looking for possibilities to cross the gullies which involves pulling myself forward by grabbing trees. But at the same time it is marvellous to ski through the “wilderness” and I have it all to myself.
After a while I reach another path, also deep in snow. But at least I sink in only 20-30 cm into the snow now and I’m glad that I can just ski along.
The way leads up and down and ends on the main cross-country skiing trail that seems to be prepared permanently. I step aside to make way for the oncoming snow plough. I take a photo but the lens is a bit fogged up. It is only -1 °C and everything is damp.
I follow the trail north until I come to the steep slope where I chicken out – as usual. Too steep for me. I go back and make my way to the barbecue place with the nice view on the district Hamna. No foot steps, I’m first today :-)
For a short while I follow the trail, then I turn right and take a trail to Skihytta. That’s a cabin that occasionally serves hot chocolate and cake on Sundays. Will it be open? First the trail is well prepared but then I am in fresh snow again and on the ascending passages I have a pulse like a hummingbird. Step by step and with some short rests I make progress and after a while my “private” path meets another trail that leads to Skihytta. Hooray! There it is.
Unfortunately the cabin is closed. But the good thing is: from here it’s only 700 metres to my apartment. First I ski down through the forest, then I unmount my skis because all the streets have been cleared from snow in the meanwhile.
It was only round six kilometres skiing today, but it took me almost three hours, mostly due to the tiring snow conditions and the time-consuming crossing of some gullies. But taking photos with a tripod slowed me down as well.
Note 1: This was not my only workout today. In the afternoon I had to clear another 20–30 cm snow of my parking lot, that I already had cleared yesterday. Then I helped my neighbours a bit. This was a task I had to do today, because …
Note 2: The weekend brought almost half a metre of snow but now the weather will become extremely ugly. Tomorrow it will rain almost 30 mm and in the rest of the week another 60 mm of rain are expected. So I wanted to get rid of the snow before it gets soaked by that rain.
Thank you for the snow, weekend. I really appreciate it. What a pity that we now get a period of rain and thaw.
This evening I was out in the snow. I walked 1.6 km and this was the route:
What happened? Was I disorientated? Drunk? Drugged? No, none of that. The snowfall was the reason. It has been snowed more or less the whole day and in the last 24 hours (22:00 – 22:00) we got 26 cm of new snow resulting in a snow depth of 103 cm.
I am lucky. The front yard beside the parking place lies about a metre deeper and I don’t have to pile up snow but push it more or less straight into the front yard. The garden gets fuller under the winter and so the way gets longer. Today’s snow clearing covered a distance of 1.6 km according to my tracking app. The last metre is the hardest, because there the snow is still soft and if you made a careless step there you might land in hip deep snow. Or in my case after moving my legs up and down a few times even deeper:
Since it hasn’t stopped snowing yet I will have to shovel again tomorrow. To be honest, I like it. I am outside and get some exercise, I can do it in the dark and the front door of my apartment is never more than 20 metres away. But I want to use my skies tomorrow as well. Last chance before the heavy rain arrives.
It was four days ago that I arrived in my “home home”, Annika’s and my house in Obbola. And we got some winter weather. First we got twenty centimetres of snow. We took a Saturday promenade to our favourite beach Vitskärsudden which looked like this:
It continued snowing and blowing the whole Saturday but then it cleared up in the night and Sunday morning the sky was clear at temperatures round -12 °C. I waited until 9:20 to watch the sun rise over the sea.
Later that day Annika and I took the very same promenade to Vitskärsudden again but it looked so differently in the sun.
In the night it became stormy. We have experienced some storms here before, but this was the very first time that I couldn’t open the front door at all. It was completely blocked by snow. I had to climb out of the snow-plastered kitchen window and shovel away the compact snow drift that blocked the door.
And this is how our house looked like some hours ago. Now it is clear and calm weather and -14 °C.
After the snowfall in the first half of the week …
… snowfall continued in the weekend.
When I woke up yesterday morning another 10–15 cm of snow have fallen over night and it is still snowing. I get myself dressed, grab my camera backpack and go out. At the kindergarten I follow the way to the ski jumps. The light is still dim and I am quite alone. A strong wind gust blows snow from all trees and for some seconds snow is everywhere in the air.
I turn left and head to the small pond. The pair of Red-throated loons has left long ago and now the pond is frozen and covered in snow.
From there I cross the small grassy bog and follow some of the many forest paths.
I walked here quite a lot last summer but now that everything is covered in 25–30 cm of snow I miss some of the paths. That circumstance gave me wet feet quite soon. While trudging through the snow I suddenly felt my rubber boots sinking in something else. Seconds later I stood knee deep in a patch of mud. Brownish water eagerly filled my boots and the mud was so sticky, that it took me a minute to get free again. The rest of my walk I had wet and pretty cold feet. Back home I praised the inventor of the hot shower. (And that of the shoe dryer.)
Two hours later I go out again, this time to jog. I just have started again three weeks ago and I want to continue in wintertime as long it is possible. This time I stick to the “official” ways – some of them are already packed and groomed for cross-country skiers. Luckily you are allowed to bike or walk on the side of these tracks. It is fun to jog while it is snowing again. And my feet remained almost dry (just a bit of snow came into the Icebug winter running shoes).
This morning even more snow has fallen and I decide to take a ski tour. Not elsewhere but directly from home. I fetch my “fjellski” and poles from the shack and start my ski tour right from the entrance of my apartment. As the day before I pass the kindergarten and the small pond. The snow depth has grown to 45–50 cm and the skis sink in 20 cm with each step. Mostly I take those forest paths that are not too steep, but sometimes I follow the ski tracks where even I am as twice as fast.
Some more snow showers pass while I’m skiing cross-country. But then the sun comes out and colourises both sea and clouds deep orange. While I try to find a good spot to take a photo (I have my DSLR with me) the sun has begun to hide again. Photographer’s bad luck!
I pass the lake Rundvannet, while another snow shower approaches. No bathers today.
While I am heading back the sun comes out again, this time for longer. It is pretty low and soon disappears behind the mountains. In 3½ weeks polar night will start in Tromsø.
The huge ski jump of the Grønnåsen Ski Jump Center is a good landmark. Since it is on top of a hill it is visible from many places. Today I will climb up and finally ski down the ski jump to see how far I … well, just kidding.
From the ski jump it is only 800 metres back home. I ski the whole distance although I always feel uncomfortable skiing on the roads. The snow is so slippery there. After 7.5 kilometres – sometimes on tracks but mostly cross-country I am back home again.
Some hours later – 16:12. It is dark and another snow shower has approached. More snow! Anyhow it is only a temporary pleasure. Next week it will get much warmer and from Tuesday 78 mm of rain are expected for the next seen days. I guess the road conditions can be pretty ugly then. I am glad that I was outside in the “preview” of winter 2024/25. Let’s see when the next snow will arrive.
After a period of warmer weather it got colder the weekend and on Monday, 28 October it started to snow. After work I took the bus to the lake Prestvannet and walked home. Some snow showers passed through making the landscape brighter. Most small paths are still wet and some are pretty muddy but apart from that it looked so nice with the first cm of snow.
The next day more snow came at temperatures round zero. After work I walked back pretty the same route (there are zillions of small paths leading through the hilly forests and over some overgrown bogs.) New snow depth: 6–7 cm. That makes a difference, at least visually.
Yesterday I took the bus home, today I walked again. It is 31 October, the last day of the month. The temperature is slightly below freezing and the now snow is fluffy. New snow depth: 15 cm. As the days before I pass the lake Prestvannet that starts freezing over at the edges. It is fun to plunge through the snow but as long as I leave the main tracks – and I do – I’m still glad about my rubber boots because under the clean white blanket of snow there are the same mud puddles as three days before. On the broader gravel paths however the first people have started using their skis.
Fun fact: the photos #2, #7, and #15 show the same motive. From open swampy water to frozen and snowed over in three days.
After a summer day on Sommarøya on Friday, the weather got colder again on the weekend and it started drizzling and raining. Both on Saturday and Sunday I took walks in the forest near my apartment. Ten days ago I still saw some cross country skiers, but now the season is definitely over, I think while I’m walking along the wet paths.
Yesterday it got colder and colder and drizzle became sleet. In the evening it started snowing and this morning at least five centimetres of fresh snow had fallen at temperatures round 1 °C. I took a small walk through the forest again – it looked quite different.
Today the wintry weather may continue and I won’t drive through the mountain valleys since my car has already summer tyres. Tomorrow warmer weather and sun will melt the snow away.