More Snow than Normal

Tromsø is a strange and magical place. It is a small town, situated on an island far north of the arctic circle. For several months every winter, there is no sun, only a faint glow to the south during mid-day when the sun rolls by just below the horizon. Curtains of green light hang in the sky to the north. They shift and move sporadically, they are the northern lights, the Aurora.

I spent a winter in Tromsø as part of my compulsory national service. That's more than 30 years ago, but I still remember the place as a wonderful party town, full of night clubs and bars.

There was hardly any snow when I was up there, but Tromsø does get a lot of snow at times. The amount it gets varies greatly from one year to another. There's no system or logic to it. It's impossible to forecast how much snow Tromsø will get. There's no way to plan for it. The only way is to be prepared and deal with it as it comes.

This year, winter came early to Tromsø, and there's been a lot of snow, so much in fact that there are no records of more snowfall so early in the season. That has caught people's attention. Unusual weather of this kind makes people talk. Pictures and videos are shared among friends on social media. However, there is little mention of this unprecedented deluge of snow in the mainstream media. Looking up Tromsø on the official, state run, weather channel, it is merely noted as being more snow than normal.

By Sennheiserz - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link