ALERT: Evacuations possible Sunday evening due to blizzard; residents urged to secure objects due to high winds (UPDATE: No evacuations after evaluations Sunday and Monday))

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(Update 11:30 a.m. Monday: After little or no snow fell during the night, officials said no evacuation will be ordered and no further evaluation meetings have been announced.)

(Update 10 p.m. Sunday: No evacuation ordered; officials will reassess situation at 10 a.m. Monday.)

Evacuating homes in avalanche-prone areas due to snow and high winds is scheduled to be discussed at 8 p.m. Sunday by emergency officials, according to The Governor of Svalbard.

The local emergency council, avalanche experts with the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) and Skred AS held a similar meeting Sunday afternoon and decided against an evacuation order for now, but “the weather forecast indicates strong winds and the Governor urges people to secure loose items,” a statement by the governor’s office notes.

Near gale-force winds exceeding 60 kilometers an hour and up to several centimeters of snow are forecast Sunday evening and Monday morning, adding to a few centimeters of fresh snow the past couple of days, according to the Meteorological Institute. The NVE is predicting a Level Three (“considerable”) avalanche risk for the area through at least Tuesday – a level that has triggered previous evacuations this winter, but lower than the Level Four conditions that existed in some areas Thursday and Friday.

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.

marksabbatini@yahoo.com

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