Past Opinion Articles

Article for the week of 10/4/06

Straight from the Swede

Swedish Weather

By, Cozmic

Okay, so in the whole “Being Swedish” thing we have covered the basics of being Swedish, politics, drinking, technology and hockey. All good and important things, but a country is only as nice as it's climate allows.
So what is the weather in Sweden like? Is it true we have to ski to work everyday, polar bears stalk the street and the snowflakes are the size of Roseanne Barr? No, not quite. First off, winter is not 12 months. It is more like 6, possibly 7. And there are no polar bears or deadly large snowflakes during this time. There are regular bears, true, but they usually stay off the street unless they get a hunkering for honey and suffer from insomnia.
And looking out my window, at the moment all I see are some really grey clouds. The sun usually goes off to warmer places for it's vacation this time of year, although temperatures are pretty decent, and this summer was insanely hot and sunny all the time. Not that I was complaining too loudly, it did, after all, mean swimming was fun and nice, while jogging would have been equal to throwing your brains in a vat if boiling water. Not that I know what that feels like, but I'm guessing it's bad.
Oh, we did have the occasional lightning-storm, one of which happily ruined the internet for yours truly for over a month, because Swedish phone companies and ISPs are entirely and totally incompetent. Jolly hip hurray!
All in all though, the summer is all too warm in the middle of the day and just right at evenings, and, of course, freezing at night. Compare this to fall, which is pretty much like evening or night constantly, with just the right amount of rain to bug you, and then, after a short fall, we have winter. And more winter.. and more winter. This is the time of year where your fingers freeze to tiny bits, the sun goes down at noon. I heard Sweden has the largest amount of season-related depressions, and I can almost see why. Unless everything turns into a less than likeable slush, it is either the just right temperature for a snowball fight (this never happens, however), or that lovable pure white and colder than hell temperature of powder snow. Or you just have no snow at all, or just enough to miss the rest, and everything is cold, cold, cold. And yet you never get nearly enough snow for school to close, instead the buses merely have trouble in traffic and you have to get to school early instead. Truly the best half of the year (or not), despite the fact that the snow merely lingers from mid-February to April.
And after that, you usually have spring. In Sweden, spring feels like it lasts a grand total of about a week, then it's summertime, and everyone is happy and jolly and burning up again.
And also.. those grey clouds I mentioned opened up. The streets are nearly flooding and the temperature has dropped two degrees Celsius. It is good to be the Swede.. or possibly not. Then again, to quote garbage “I'm only happy when it rains”. Or it is possibly a good time to start dancing and singing, as soon as I find my raincoat and lose my senses.