The biggest arctic wildfire raging in 40 years, scorching heat weeks on end. Thunderstorms causing flash floods in some counties and a record breaking 178 663 lightning strikes during one day in Scandinavia (47 901 in Sweden alone).

This summer so far... I lack words for it. It is like its the upside down world here right now, and I can't describe how unseasonably hot its been and how extreme the weather is all over Sweden - still am I have to add. I experienced my first (as I can remember) tropical night last summer, down in the southern parts when I still lived there. How I remember last summer, it were quite hot in August and we didn't get rain for weeks, but I can't remembering experiencing anything like this before. I now live in the Northern parts of the country, so far we've had several tropical nights and yesterday were one of those 22°C at 2am. Otherwise we've had temperatures ranging between 28-36°C locally during the days, barely any rain to speak off where I live. I dare not write how hot its been in the sun some days. This is insane, and this extreme summer followed one of the worst winters in a long time, it was wet, icy and troublesome, and several sled-dog races were either forced to cancel or move. Highly unusual.

We've had a couple of forest fires around here, all of them under control and extinguished within hours or a day - smaller forest fires are quite common in these parts of Sweden during summer. What is not common is the nightmarish arctic wildfire raging in the regions of Sala right now. It is the biggest in 40 years covering a area of 15,000 hectares — about equal to 21,000 football fields or 57 square miles. So far. Wildfires like these are complicated since it appear to have engaged the basement layer. As with other recent Arctic fires in permafrost or near permafrost zones, areas well below the surface soil zone are involved, resulting in risk of a very intense, long time-scale event. It can take months to completely extinguish a fire like this.
My heart goes out to all those families living in the area, I cannot fathom how terrible it must be to flee your homes not knowing what you'll return to once this terror is over. Unfortunately the fire claimed its first victim last night, a young man, and left one severely injured rushed to the hospital when they were found. My thoughts goes out to the families. I pray no more gets injured or loses their lives. 

Photo Source: Aftonbladet & Lars Matti

Wildfire in the area of  Sala 

Wildfire in the area of Sala