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STORM

How to prepare for Storm Babet if you’re in southern Sweden

Storm Babet, which has already raged over the UK, northern Germany and Denmark, is heading for southern Sweden on Friday. How should you prepare?

Published: 20 October 2023 12:53 CEST
How to prepare for Storm Babet if you're in southern Sweden
Workers build temporary flood protection in Skanör, southern Sweden, ahead of Storm Babet. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Plan ahead

Keep an eye on the weather forecast, and if you do have to travel, check for disruptions on your planned route.

The Swedish Transport Administration has details of road closures here and rail closures here, and you can check your local transport service’s website for any planned disruptions to buses or trains, too.

From 3pm on Friday the following train lines will be closed for at least 24 hours (correct as of noon on Friday):

Svågertorp-Trelleborg, Svågertorp-Simrishamn, Ramlösa-Teckomatorp-Eslöv, Karlskrona–Kristianstad. Rail replacement buses will be put in place, southern Swedish transport service Skånetrafiken writes on its website, although these could also be cancelled.

A number of bus routes in Skåne will also be cancelled on Friday evening. Here’s the full list. 

READ ALSO:

Trains between Kalmar and Linköping will not be running, nor will the Halmstad-Värnamo line.

There is also a risk of the Öresund bridge having to close if wind speeds reach more than 25 metres per second. Bridge authorities warn that the risk of closure is greatest from 8pm on Friday to early Saturday morning.

In addition to this, some flights are cancelled from Copenhagen airport (mainly smaller aircraft), and all TT Line ferries on Friday from Travemünde and Rostock in Germany, Trelleborg in Sweden and Świnoujście in Poland are cancelled.

Skånetrafiken urges travellers to stay at home if possible.

Protect your home

It’s a good idea to make sure gutters, drains and similar are cleared of dead leaves or other debris so any water can drain away quickly. Raise anything in your cellar that can’t get wet off the ground or bring it upstairs into the rest of your home.

If you live in a house, bring any garden furniture inside, and make sure any loose items that could be moved by the wind like trampolines or bins are securely tied down or packed away.

Make sure you’re prepared if there’s a power outage with everything you need easily accessible, like a torch, matches, candles, blankets and a battery powered radio, as well as some food or snacks you can prepare without power.

You can also use sandbags and plastic for makeshift flood protection.

After the storm

Check your house and any other buildings for storm damage. Look for loose roof tiles, chimneys or similar, and remove any debris from the roof once the storm is over. Report any storm damage to your insurance company.

Which buses are cancelled?

The following bus routes in Skåne are cancelled (correct as of 3.30pm on Friday):

From 10.40am
SkåneExpressen 15: Malmö – Skanör

From 1.30pm
Regional bus 177: Staffanstorp-Malmö

From 3pm
SkåneExpressen 10: Örkelljunga – Helsingborg

From 6pm:
Ystad city buses: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6
Trelleborg city buses: 1, 2 and 10

Regional bus 103: Höllviken-Lund
Regional bus 141: Svedala-Malmö
Regional bus 144: Anderslöv-Östra Grevie
Regional bus 145: Trelleborg-Svedala
Regional bus 146: Trelleborg-Malmö
Regional bus 148: Torup-Malmö
Regional bus 150: Klågerup-Vellinge
Regional bus 152: Höllviken
Regional bus 165: Svedala-Lund
Regional bus 181: Trelleborg-Vellinge
Regional bus 183: Trelleborg-Anderslöv
Regional bus 184: St Beddinge-Trelleborg
Regional bus 190: Ystad-Trelleborg
Regional bus 300: Falsterbo-Hyllie
Regional bus 301: Ystad-Sjöbo
Regional bus 305: Abbekås-Skurup
Regional bus 307: Ystad-Skurup
Regional bus 321: Simrishamn-Skillinge
Regional bus 322: Skillinge-Ystad
Regional bus 330: Sjöbo-Hörby
Regional bus 337: Ystad-Tomelilla
Regional bus 338: Tomelilla-Sjöbo
Regional bus 340: Sjöbo-Fränninge
Regional bus 341: Sjöbo-Veberöd
Regional bus 379: Vellinge-Östra Grevie
Regional bus 571: Simrishamn-Ystad
Regional bus 574: Simrishamn-Brösarp
Regional bus 575: Simrishamn-Gärsnäs
Regional bus 577: Simrishamn-Skillinge
Regional bus 579: Tomelilla-S:t Olof

SkåneExpressen 3: Simrishamn-Kristianstad
SkåneExpressen 4: Ystad-Kristianstad
SkåneExpressen 5: Simrishamn-Lund
SkåneExpressen 8: Sjöbo-Malmö

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TOURISM

‘Coolcations’: Tourists flock to Norway and Sweden to dodge summer heat

Driven away from typical summer destinations by intense heat and prolonged heatwaves, tourists are flocking to cooler climates like Norway and Sweden for their holidays.

Published: 3 July 2024 10:10 CEST
'Coolcations': Tourists flock to Norway and Sweden to dodge summer heat

Far from her home in the tourist mecca of Tenerife, Cati Padilla is one of the growing number of travellers escaping heatwaves for cooler holidays in Nordic countries.

Countries like Norway and Sweden in northern Europe are now promoting “coolcations” to attract visitors to their temperate climates.

Why leave the Canaries in summer? “To escape the heat,” said Padilla while on holiday with her friends.

“Norway attracted our attention a long time ago because of the green landscape, the mountains and the ice,” added the civil servant in her fifties on the so-called “troll path”, a serpentine mountain route towards the fjords.

In 2023, foreign overnight stays rose by 22 percent in Norway and 11 percent in Sweden according to official statistics, mainly driven by the end of Covid-related restrictions in 2022 and a slump in Scandinavian currencies.

But a survey in Germany for tourist organisation Visit Sweden also found that two out of five people plan to change their travel habits due to the southern European heat, opting for different seasons or cooler destinations.

“Coolcation is not just about the weather,” said Susanne Andersson, head of Visit Sweden. “It’s about travelling to places where it’s a little bit cooler both in the weather but also cooler in the sense of not that many people.”

READ ALSO: Why are temperatures of 25C considered a heatwave in Sweden?

For some people, gone are the overcrowded Mediterranean beaches and heatwaves causing forest fires and the partial closure of the Acropolis in the Greek capital in June.

Nowadays, many prefer to take a dip in a lake or a fjord, or fill their lungs with fresh air on a mountain hike in relative isolation.

– Killer summer –

When British tourist Pam disembarked from a cruise ship on the majestic Geiranger Fjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site, she expected to find cool weather.

But she found herself in sandals and a t-shirt, rather than the raincoat and woollen clothes she packed.

“It’s been wonderful,” said the resident of Lichfield city in west-central England. “It’s still not that hot that you can’t walk.”

“It just does not interest me now to sit on a sunbed, read a book, get up, go and have something to eat and come back to the sunbed. I’d rather visit places, find the history and just look at beautiful places.”

READ MORE: How will Norway be affected by climate change-driven tourism?

The frequency and intensity of extreme heat events and the duration of heatwaves have “almost certainly” increased since 1950 and will continue to do so with global warming, according to UN climate experts.

By 2050, half of Europe’s population could face high or very high risk heat stress in summer, with heat-related deaths potentially doubling or tripling with temperature rises of between 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to 3C.

“Spain is a no. Greece is a no,” said 74-year-old French pensioner Gerard Grollier, as he disembarked from a coach in Geiranger village in western Norway.

Why Norway? “The climate is much more pleasant,” explained his daughter, Virginie, a financial adviser. “We have not protected our planet, and now that is impacting tourism.”

– Submerged villages –

The capital of Lapland in northern Finland, Rovaniemi, recorded a 29 percent jump in overnight stays last year.

“You can feel the ‘coolcation’ here, the trend started years ago but it has increased with the hot summers in southern and central Europe,” said Sanna Karkkainen, who promotes tourism in Rovaniemi.

The coolcation influx has its issues, including a surge in Airbnb properties and unruly tourists.

“Our main concern is to have too many people at the same time,” emphasised Jan Ove Tryggestad, former mayor of a Norwegian village where a cruise ship carrying 6,000 passengers and 2,000 crew members had just docked.

“It’s a small village here. In Hellesylt, there are between 280 to 300 winter inhabitants. Obviously it’s a bit of a culture shock when suddenly a small town, by European standards, turns up,” he added. “But we adapt.”

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