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Friday, March 29, 2024

Snow snarls mountain traffic

Heavy snowfall in the mountains known as Sognefjellet has closed roads and isolated some local cabins and lodges, but emergency crews were working hard to clear the most heavily used mountain pass.

State highway (riksveg) 55 over Sognefjellet was closed on Wednesday after “meters of snow” fell over the area in the past few days. “And it’s blowing incredibly,” Børre Bakken of the lodge called Sognefjellshytta told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). Bakken hoped road-clearing crews would reach his lodge during the course of the day.

Storms have hit much of southern and western Norway in recent days, with unusually strong winds. Snow as low as 700 to 900 meters in elevation is not common so late in May.

“The weather is more like autumn than late spring or summer,” state meteorologist Berit Hagen told NRK. She said the weather was expected to calm down, with the low pressure system moving northwards. Strong winds also died down in Oslo on Wednesday, and the sun reappeared.

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