Blizzard blankets western Greenland, brings island to standstill

This map shows the amount of snowfall in western Greenland to April 15. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE DANISH METEOROLOGICAL INSTITUTE)

Snow, lots of it, and strong winds — that’s what characterized the weather over southwestern Greenland this past week, the Danish Meteorological Institute reports.

The night of April 14 brought about 20 centimetres of snow to Nuuk, and then in the morning, wind reduced visibility in the capital to less than 100 metres, or about 300 feet.

Later that day, the storm intensified with gale-force winds and another 20 to 30 cm of snow.

By April 15, Maniitsoq had received between 30 and 50 cm of snow and in Sisimiut, between 20 and 30 cm fell.

The temperatures, which had been slightly below zero, then dropped to -10 C.

“So there is still no prospect of spring weather in these parts,” the DNI said April 16.

During the height of the storm, travel around western Greenland came to a standstill: “Canceled, canceled, canceled,” is how Sermitsiaq/AG put it.

Those words were repeated many times on flight departure and arrival boards at the Nuuk airport, the newspaper said.

And a photo gallery on the Sermitsiaq/AG website shows the impact of the storm in Nuuk where vehicles were involved in many weather-related collisions or buried in snow.