Stockholm Historical Weather Observations — Maximum snow depth each winter since 1904/05

Anders Moberg

This dataset contains observed maximum snow depth in each winter from the winter season 1904/05 through 2018/19 at the old astronomical observatory in Stockholm. Data are provided as (i) maximum snow depth in December, and (ii) maximum snow depth during December⁠⁠ – ⁠⁠April.

Although weather observations have been made continuously at the old astronomical observatory in Stockholm since 1754, regular snow depth observations are not available before the winter of 1904/05.

Citation

Anders Moberg (2019) Stockholm Historical Weather Observations — Maximum snow depth each winter since 1904/05. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre Database. https://doi.org/10.17043/stockholm-historical-snow-depth-1

Data description

Data are provided in one file having three columns, available in two file formats:

1. plain text file (.txt)

2. tab-separated value file (.tsv)

File content:

Column 1: Year when December falls

Column 2: Maximum snow depth in December (unit: cm)

Column 3: Maximum snow depth in December⁠⁠ – April (unit: cm)

The dataset also includes a figure with plots of the time series of snow depth in png format.

Further information about the data file content is found in a README text file.

Comments

The observation site is included in the national station network managed by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), with station number 98210 (manual station) and 98230 (automatic station), but data in the current dataset can differ from those in the SMHI database.

This dataset was compiled as follows:
Data for 1904/05⁠⁠ – 1950/51 was provided personally by staff at the SMHI.
Data for 1951/52⁠⁠ – 2018/19 was obtained using data from the SMHI resource Öppna Data, followed by identification of the maximum values in December and December⁠⁠ – April for each winter.

Snow depth is currently measured with a ruler or measuring stick every day at 7:00 (Swedish normal time, i.e. UTC+01:00). The measurement is made at a precision of one centimetre and the reported snow depth should preferably be a mean value over at least five measurements within a few metres. More information on how snow depth measurements are made at Swedish meteorological stations is available, in Swedish, at the SMHI website.