Heavy wet snow causes problems in Helsinki

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Helsinki residents awoke on Sunday morning to the white of winter. Between 3:00 and 7:00 a.m. around four centimetres of snow had been dumped on the city’s streets. In places it had been blown into sizeable drifts.
      There were few road accidents as a result of the first real snowfall of the season, as during the worst of the overnight blizzard traffic was very light.
      In the course of Sunday the temperature rose to several degrees above freezing point and the bulk of the wet snow melted away. Rain is promised for the early part of this week.
     
Whilst the snow was a pleasant surprise for children, who relished getting their sledges out and praised the quality of the white material for making snowmen or snowballs, it also presented some serious problems for property owners and the city authorities.
      The heavy and wet snow proved too much for a plastic skylight at the World Trade Center in downtown Helsinki.
      It came crashing down in the middle of the dining room of the ground-floor Papa Giovanni restaurant during the morning, when the establishment was fortunately closed. The restaurant remained closed all of Sunday while clearing-up operations went on.
     
A sports hall of the compressed air type in the West Harbour area collapsed as a result of the snow loading.
      The hall, which is used for junior sports, was empty at the time, but two men were on the roof shovelling snow off when it unceremoniously deflated itself. Neither of the workmen was injured.
      The structure is used for training by around 2,000 metro area children each week. It was unclear how quickly it could be put back into service.


Links:
  Finnish Meteorological Institute

Helsingin Sanomat