It was snowing in Oslo Monday morning, and many other places around Southern Norway, but within hours the snow turn to cold rain. State meteorologists quickly squashed any dreams of skiing at lower elevations this weekend, warning that the snow piling up in some areas wouldn’t last very long.
“We’ll probably only have some snow today (Monday),” Eldbjørg Dirdal Moxnes of the Meteorological Institute in Oslo told weather web site yr.no. “For those who want to go skiing in Nordmarka (Oslo’s northern forest), and elsewhere at lower elevations (below 1,000 meters), it’s not enough.”
She said it would be better in the mountains, where falling snow combined with some strong winds and generally stormy weather was causing problems for motorists. Road crews were having troubled keeping the highways open over the mountains, not least at Haukelifjell, and delays were expected. State highway officials warned of slipper roads all over the country.
In Western Norway, it was snowing at elevations from 600 meters and higher. The snow at the highest elevations will stick around, said another meteorologist, Anne Solveig Andersen of weather service Værvarslinga på Vestlandet. More stormy weather was predicted along the coast.
The white rooftops that could be seen all over the Norwegian capital Monday morning had disappeared by early afternoon. Temperatures are lower but still too mild for any build-up of the white stuff that skiers have longed for since last winter.
Meanwhile, there were some clear and at least slightly sunny skies in Northern Norway, although the days are short and the sun is disappearing under the horizon in many areas, not to be seen again until late January.
newsinenglish.no staff
