[Dave K]

Day 77: Didn't think i'd have time for this today but as Iceland was mild today I don't have to wait for late synop returns.

The current standings for the whole duration so far:

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The final stats for the month of December only:

[Dave K]

Day 78: Another with no real impact on the league tables, Belarus moving up from 10th to 9th in the Nation's rankings the only change of note.

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Arjeplog (Pite Sami: Arjepluovve) is a locality and the seat of Arjeplog Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden with 1,947 inhabitants in 2005.
It is a popular winter test site for the European car industry.

Arjeplog has offered families 100,000 kronor, or individuals 25,000 kronor to move to the town. They are hoping to increase their population by 30 residents per year for the next three years. [ So there's still time for those interested BDG ).

Arjeplog does indeed have the space. It is Sweden's fourth largest municipality in terms of surface area and the country's most sparsely inhabited.

[Dave K]

Day 79: Today we have a -30 °C minimum at <500m asl for the first time since November 24th - last year minima this low were ten-a-penny. No significant changes anywhere, Norway still trying to catch Sweden but making little headway.

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A photo of the weather station at Khoseda-Khard (the background building not the tent!). Clearly taken in summer.

The once flourishing village of Khoseda-Khard is now mainly ruins. The only buildings now remaining at Khoseda-Khard belong to a governmental Meteorological and Hydrological monitoring station.

[Dave K]

Day 80: Russia was much colder than anywhere else but even there temperatures were largely rising through last night into this morning. Right in the heart of winter and yet consistently rather moderate temperatures (relatively) are enough to get places into the ten scoring positions. Today's scores have no significant impact on the locations or national rankings. 184 locations have now managed to claim points in this project.

[Dave K]

Day 81: A really cold night in a small part of Lapland overnight which didn't affect Sweden and so Norway is able to close the gap on its neighbour again in the nation's rankings. In fact temperatures plunged still further after 06Z so it may be much the same with tomorrow's scores and perhaps Norway will finally catch Sweden. Naturally Russia continues to push further ahead, the rest of Europe again becoming much less cold generally for the time of year.

[Dave K]

Day 82: Full update of the tables again today because there were some big changes.

Čoavddatmohkki in Norway logged the lowest minimum outside Russia so far in this project and also some impressive minima for Finland. This means that at last Norway has been able to overtake Sweden in the nations's rankings for 2nd place! Petrun' has reclaimed 2nd place in the locations ranking and there is quite a shuffling around in the top 10. Once again outside Norway/Sweden/Finland/Russia the minima were generally on the mild side all over the continent though.

[Dave K]

Day 83: A bit strange today, some very cold days locally but despite a thorough search through the whole of Europe I can only find 8 locations with eligible ice days with so much of the continent mild again. Of the 8 that took points, no fewer than 4 of them are first time scorers too. There are no significant changes in the league tables.

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Saltdal is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Salten traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Rognan. Saltdal was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838.

The Old Norse form of the name must have been Salptardalr. The first element is the genitive case of the river name Salpt (now Saltelva) and the last element is dalr which means "valley" or "dale". The meaning of the river name is unknown.

The coat-of-arms is from modern times. They were granted 1988. The arms show two gold-colored rowan twigs on a red background.



During World War II, the Germans decided to lengthen the Nordlandsbanen from Lønsdal in Saltfjellet. Over a period of three years, the original plan was to first have both the road and the railroad all the way to Narvik and then on to Kirkenes, but they only managed to build the railroad to Bodø. The Germans continued to lengthen the road to Kirkenes, and it came to be known as Blodvegen (the Bloodroad) by locals. This project involved prisoners of war, mostly from the former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, in building this road under extremely harsh conditions. The workers lived in prisoner camps where they did not receive enough food for the hard work with the road. This caused many of the workers to collapse and die. A famous sign of this road is the blood cross one of the prisoners drew on the mountainside with his recently killed friend's blood. It has become a tradition to repaint this cross with red paint, so people who pass this will never forget what happened. It's still possible to walk this road, which stretches from Saltnes to Saksenvika. At Saltnes, you will find the Bloodroad museum.



Saltdal was known for having some of the most horrifying prisoner-of-war camps in Norway during World War II. A grand total of 15-18 camps with 9,500 Russian, Polish, and Yugoslavian prisoners were located in the valley.

The main centre in the municipality is Rognan, on the southern shore of Saltdalsfjord, where the valley floor meet the fjord. When the Ice age ended and the ice had melted 9,000 years ago, the valley was a fjord as the sea reached what is today an elevation of 120 meters due to isostatic depression. The valley is situated just north of the Arctic Circle.

Two national parks are partially in the municipality: Saltfjellet-Svartisen National Park in the southwest, and Junkerdal National Park in the eastern part. This makes Saltdal one of the municipalites in Norway with the largest percentage of protected areas within its borders. The Saltdal river (known as "Saltdalselva" by locals) runs through the valley. The riverbed appears very bright in some places due to the minerals in the sand. The valley is covered with pine forest and birch and other trees are common as well. Lakes in the region include Fiskeløysvatnet.



The municipality lies on the northeastern side of the mountains of Saltfjellet, in the rain shadow of the mountains, and with mountains in almost all directions, Saltdal is one of the driest areas in Norway. For five years in a row, 2001 to 2005, and then again in 2007 and 2008, Saltdal (upper part of valley) was the weather station with the least precipitation in continental Norway, with only 74 millimetres (3 in) in 2005. Saltdal is also known for its warm summer days, frequently being one of Norway's warmest locations if the right weather situation occurs (east or southeasterlies). During a heatwave in June 2011 Saltdal recorded four days in a row with daytime temperatures exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), and on 11 june 2011 Saltdal recorded 33.8 °C (93 °F), new county heat record for Nordland.[3] Monthly 24-hr averages range from −6 °C (21 °F) in January to 14 °C (57 °F) in July (1961-1990 base period, source Norges Meteorologiske Institutt), and the annual average is 3.3 °C (38 °F). April and May are the driest months, with less than 10 millimetres (0 in) precipitation, and July is the wettest month with 39 millimetres (2 in). This data is from the driest, upper part of the valley, and most other parts of the municipality averages about twice as much precipitaiton; Junkerdal (210 meters above sea level) averages 600 millimetres (24 in) annually.

Saltdal has a great history in boat building out of local timber. Especially before World War II, the boatbuilding industry employed a large percentage of Saltdal's population.

Nowadays, the largest employer in Saltdal is Nexans. The company's Rognan factory specializes in telecommunication, fibre optics and copper cables. There is also some agriculture in Saltdal, and many people work within public services.

[Dave K]

Day 84: A rare opportunity to get this done early today as I have no need to wait for Iceland's complete update of synops.

Estonia until now has been very resistant to the cold but finally it makes its debut in the scoring as the 24th nation to score and pushing the UK down a place again ( to 21st ). So only Lithuania of the countries that might have been expected in the north and east to feature has failed to score. Orenburg re-appears to increase its lead a little more, and the tussle between Sweden and Norway carries on with less than 1/5th of a point separating them.

[Dave K]

Day 85: Another easy one to compile today with Iceland mild again.

Last year's Project Icebox winner Nikkaluokta hasn't featured much yet this time, but today it has registered the coldest minima outside Russia in 2011/12 (below 500m asl anyway), with -31.8 °C. This is enough to help Sweden reclaim 2nd place in the nations rankings above Norway. Another cold 24 hours for Estonia propels it into the Top 12 nations. The top 3 in the locations table stay as they were but it's all change from positions 4 to 10. There are now 191 locations which have scored points with Aviemore remaining the UKs sole representative.

[Dave K]

Day 86: Still rather mild in Iceland so again today it's the same nations involved as the last couple of days. Nikkaluokta plunged down a bit further yesterday morning to log an even colder temperature and Vajmat, also in Sweden, records the lowest 24 hour mean for anywhere in Europe so far. So Sweden has widened the gap over Norway a bit further and is making a very little ground on the runaway leader Russia too.

[Dave K]

Day 87: A slight easing of the extreme cold generally. Grímsstaðir back in the scoring after a long absence and closes down on 2nd place. Some more shuffling of positions too from 4th to 10th.

[Dave K]

Day 88: Grímsstaðir has gone back into 2nd place and the gap to 1st looks bridgeable, although 3rd placed Petrun' may benefit too as NE European Russia looks to be cooling off again.

[Dave K]

Day 89: Petrun' jumps from 3rd place to 1st in the locations ranking. Iceland warms up early this morning and Grímsstaðir misses out on an ice day. Another very cold 24 hours for parts of Sweden. Really quite desperate scrambling to find ice days for 9th and 10th place today. Nothing significant changes in the national rankings so just the daily scores and locations ranking tables today.

[Dave K]

Day 90: Defending champion Nikkaluokta moves up to 3rd, it's best position so far this time after spending ages in the shadows. Some extremely cold daily mean temps in Russia, but outside of Russia, Sweden, Norway and Finland it was a struggle again to find more eligible ice days for scoring, in the event Latvia takes 9th and 10th with very moderate temps and pushes the UK back down one more place in the nation's ranking. Iceland even had some +10 °C maxes yesterday and mostly frost free too.

BTW - there was one ice day at a synop station in France but Rodez ( Aveyron ) is above the 500m asl limit otherwise France might have got on the scoreboard!

[Dave K]

Day 91: France at last manages to get on the scoreboard - the 25th nation to gain points, ça s'arrose! Ambérieu-en-Bugey had to beat stations with ice days in Ukraine and Belarus to open its account. The deep cold proving more reluctant to shift from Lapland and NE European Russia than before and Nikkaluokta is now in 2nd place. Will we see a sub -40 °C this winter though? Iceland again on the mild side.

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Ambérieu-en-Bugey is a commune in the department of Ain in eastern France. It is the largest town in the arrondissement of Belley and the seat of the Ambérieu-en-Bugey canton, as well as the capital of the historic region of Bugey. The population as at 2008 was 12 792.



The town lies in the commune's western part, on the right bank of the river Albarine, which forms most of the commune's southern border. It is surrounded by the communes of Saint-Dennis-en-Bugey, and Bettant . Its expansion is due to the demographical expansion, two new housing areas on the eastern side of the city where there is lots of space (near Bettant).

The demographic expansion af the town is mainly due to the lack of space in Lyon and its surroundings, where most of the region's work is. The TER/REAL services put in place by the SNCF allow a good link to Lyon.

They are a few things to do around the place, in the town itself, there is the train museum, and of course the old town. In Bettant and Saint-Dennis, you can visit the 'folky' village and the fountains in Bettant.

Ambérieu-en-Bugey Air Base (French: Base aérienne 278 Ambérieu-en-Bugey) (ICAO: LFXA) is a front-line French Air Force (French: Armée de l'Air (ALA) base located approximately 5 km north-northwest of Ambérieu-en-Bugey in the department of Ain in eastern France.

Ambérieu-en-Bugey Air Base is a primary a depot repair and supply center of electronic equipment on board aircraft and ground telecommunication equipment and detection aids to navigation and the manufacture of simple equipment.

It also supports calibration and repair of all devices for measuring the Air Force and the manufacture and repair of security equipment, rescue and survival of pilots. Ambérieu has two Jodel D140C Mousquetaire aircraft assigned for courier duty.

[Mesogeiakos]

Pity you limit it to 500m alt or else an interesting city in NW Greece called Florina (around 600m alt) might give Greece its first entry the next few days...

[DG57]

It seems that today have brought a bunch of icy weather in East-Central France ! Even at the city stations of Lyon !



http://www.meteociel...hp?all=1&mode=4

This post has been edited by MorganeLanesle: 15 January 2012 - 18:58

[Dave K]

Mesogeiakos, on 15 January 2012 - 18:09, said:

Pity you limit it to 500m alt or else an interesting city in NW Greece called Florina (around 600m alt) might give Greece its first entry the next few days...

Well 500m seems to be some sort of agreed threshold against "high altitude" used by various Met Offices which is why Ian and myself have adopted it.

MorganeLanesle, on 15 January 2012 - 18:56, said:

It seems that today have brought a bunch of icy weather in East-Central France ! Even at the city stations of Lyon !

06-18.00 UTC, 15 Jan. 2012.png

http://www.meteociel...hp?all=1&mode=4

Maybe more points tomorrow then

[Mesogeiakos]

Big Dave, on 15 January 2012 - 19:09, said:

Well 500m seems to be some sort of agreed threshold against "high altitude" used by various Met Offices which is why Ian and myself have adopted it.

I am well aware of this Dave

It is just that I want to blackmail an entry from Greece, and I will by saying that the city of Florina despite its 620m alt has managed an all time record of -24.5C according to HNMS. I reckon that this must be the lowest in Europe today.

You dont get to see everyday Greece playing in the Ivy League of cold spots,do you? LOL

This post has been edited by Mesogeiakos: 16 January 2012 - 08:29

[Dave K]

Mesogeiakos, on 16 January 2012 - 08:28, said:

I am well aware of this Dave

It is just that I want to blackmail an entry from Greece, and I will by saying that the city of Florina despite its 620m alt has managed an all time record of -24.5C according to HNMS. I reckon that this must be the lowest in Europe today.

You dont get to see everyday Greece playing in the Ivy League of cold spots,do you? LOL

That's an impressive minimum, and indeed it's not really that high an altitude - about the same as Madrid. Way colder than anything we've had here yet this winter for sure. All time record nationally for Greece is -27.8 °C at Ptolemaïda ( so I read anyway) but I don't know the altitude of the town.