Nordic Snowstorm Brings Extreme Cold, Traps Hundreds of Vehicles

A Nordic snowstorm has brought extreme cold to several countries in Europe, causing hundreds of vehicles to be trapped along with the people inside them.

An Arctic blast brought record-low temperatures with heavy snow to northern Sweden and Finland, causing chaos on the roads. On the other hand, other parts of the region grappled with devastating floods.

Nordic Snowstorm Brings Extreme Cold

In northern Sweden's Kvikkjokk-Arrenjarka, officials recorded -43.6 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, which is the lowest temperature in that location since records started in 1887. The news was announced by a meteorologist at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute Sverker Hellstrom.

During an interview, Hellstrom said that snow drifts have caused severe impacts on the roads, which left people stuck inside their vehicles. Rescue services on Thursday evacuated hundreds of people who were stranded inside their cars overnight due to heavy snow.

On the other hand, in the far northwest of Finland, officials recorded temperatures in the municipality of Enontekio dropping to -42.4 degrees Celsius. This marked the nation's lowest temperature in the last 18 years, as per CNN.

On Tuesday, authorities said they found a woman dead after she allegedly went skiing in a blizzard in northern Finland and her child was still missing on Wednesday. Scandinavia has been struggling with a biting cold since December last year.

Norway's average temperature last month was 2.3 degrees below average, with Finland and Sweden seeing temperatures as low as six degrees below average across certain regions a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Mika Ratanen said that the very cold weather could have also contributed to the Bothnian Bay completely freezing over earlier than usual.

He said that this was the earlier in the winter that the bay, which is located between Finland and Sweden, had frozen since 2011. Ratanen noted that it currently looks like they will have a "pretty good ice situation" in the Baltic Sea this winter.

Hundreds of Cars Stranded Overnight

Late Thursday, officials reported that stranded motorists were locked inside their cars for more than 24 hours while on a major Swedish thoroughfare. They were located along the main roadway between the Skane area and southern Sweden, according to UPI.

It took the police, rescue crews, and the army working through the night to rescue the stranded motorists. Authorities then told the people who were saved that they could retrieve their vehicles later when the weather permits.

In a statement, police spokeswoman Evelina Olsson said that it was total chaos, noting that the issue was that snow was so heavy that the road was covered in just half an hour after plowing. The army was also dispatched to deliver food and water to the stranded motorists, the majority of whom were freed by Thursday morning.

By the afternoon, rescue workers had evacuated all those who wanted to leave their cars. However, many vehicles and trucks were expected to remain stuck along a 12-mile stretch of the road, European Route E22, until Friday morning.

One of the people who spent the night stranded in their vehicles was 39-year-old Erika Sepeliovaite. She had been driving home to the city of Malmo with her two teenage sons and their dog, said the New York Times.