On Tuesday morning, Sunniva Laupstad Torvik woke up to a special sight. Around the home in Tørvikbygd in Kvam municipality in Hardanger there were well over 50 lumps of snow with holes inside. – I have never seen anything like it before, says Saupstad Torvik, who believes that “snow donuts” is an appropriate description of the figures. They were about 20–40 cm high. Laupstad Torvik counted over 50 such “snow donuts”. Photo: Sunniva Laupstad Torvik. Over 50 “snow doughnuts”. It was Bergens Tidende that wrote about the matter first. Saupstad Torvik noticed that the wind picked up the night before she discovered the “snow donut rings”. Out in the dark, she saw something on the ground that the wind carried with it. At first she thought it was rubbish the wind carried with it, but on Tuesday morning she could count over 50 snow figures around the house. – Nature is the greatest artist of all, and this is definitely proof of that, she says. They were about 20–40 cm high. Photo: Sunniva Laupstad Torvik Meteorologist: – Very rarely the wind had a hand in the game in what meteorologists have previously referred to as “naturally created snowballs”. – This happens relatively rarely. There is a lot to be done, says state meteorologist Stine Sagen. For her and her colleagues too, such “snow donuts” are very unusual. The phenomenon occurs when clumps of snow come onto a cold and firm surface, and then roll away. But there must be a certain wind strength, temperature and snow conditions for such figures to be created. It must also be a little hilly, and not completely flat, says the meteorologist. But why there is a hole in the middle – the meteorologist does not have an answer to that. Among her colleagues, only one has been lost in the phenomenon before. – So it is an unusual sight, says Sagen. The unusual weather phenomenon is little known even to meteorologists. Photo: Sunniva Laupstad Torvik. Sunniva Saupstad Torvik herself thinks the figures are a great and funny sight. At first she thought it was the plow truck behind. – But the more I looked at them, I realized that was not the case, because they were not facing the road. There were also no footprints around the figures, so everything is created by nature. – It is very fascinating, she says.
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– Very fascinating – news Vestland
