Grad is the Norwegian word for ‘degree.’  It is 42 grader where I am right now in southern MN.  I just looked at the værkart (weather map) for Norway and there is quite a spread of temperaturer.  Many people incorrectly assume that Norway is much colder than the northernmost part of the United States.  I live in southern MN and I can say that it gets REALLY cold here in the winter.  I read somewhere once that Minnesota has the second most extreme climate in the world behind Siberia.  Siberia gets much colder than MN, no doubt, but the range of temperaturer here is much greater.  It reaches 100 here in the summer and sinks below zero often in the winter.  I lived in Oslo for 8 months and it was typically warmer there at a latitude of 59 than it was in St. Paul MN at a latitude of 45.  Norway has the gulf stream to keep the coastal areas temperate.

It is 48 grader (fahrenheit) in Oslo right now.  The high in Norway today is 52 grader in Arendal, Sandefjord, and Fredrikstad (all 3 in the southeastern part of the country) and the low is 12 grader in Longyearbyen.  Longyearbyen is on the island Spitsbergen, which is the main island of the Svalbard archipelago off the northwestern coast of Norway. 

Longyearbyen is named after John Munroe Longyear (byen means ‘the city’), owner of the Arctic Coal Company of Boston.  Longyear settled the area in 1906 and it is now considered the northernmost town in the world with a population over 1,000.  Mining is a major form of livlihood for the inhabitants of Longyearbyen. 

2 interesting facts about Longyearbyen that I think are really cool:

1-There is a global seed vault that has the capacity to hold millions of crop seeds in the case of global disaster.  Longyearbyen was chosen for the site of the safe both because of its remoteness and for the temperature of the permafrost.  And because of this permafrost…..

2-bodies may not be buried there.  The ground is too cold.  In the 1930s it was discovered that the bodies were not decomposing because of the permafrost cover.  Bodies have to be transported to another area of the country for burial.  Bizarre, huh?  I guess there should be no reason for any haunting in Longyearbyen then.  Too bad for all those kids next week on Halloween!!

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