After days of scorching weather across Sweden and record-high temperatures of 35°C on Sunday, parts of the country have been battered by floods, lightning and tornados. The sweltering weekend weather proved to be the lull before the storm, as western Varmland in central Sweden saw a vast change on Monday night.
Storms pushed into the area around midnight, with the town of Arjang proving the worst hit. Lightning strikes set fire to a house, a cabin and a garage, but SOS Alarm have reported no causalities. Several properties in Torsby also sustained flooding and trees were up-routed by gale-force winds.
The ferocious conditions only lasted around two hours, but the meteorological office SMHI has warned that more extreme weather could be experienced early this week in Skane, Varmland and Dalarna.
“The front will then wander slowly east over Gotaland,” said Sten Laurin at SMHI. “It continues up towards the Stockholm area on Tuesday evening. The worst of it should have eased by then, it is not usually so intense when it comes by night,” he added.
The bad weather is then expected to head towards Finland from Sweden’s east coast, with warm climes of between 25 and 30 degrees returning to most parts of the country by the end of the week. The records temperatures seen in Sweden over the weekend are not expected to return, however.
“The highest levels have culminated. We can now expect a more moderate summer warmth,” Sten Laurin said told The Local.