Rain? We have had our share of rain in Spits­ber­gen this sum­mer, that’s for sure. And that is exact­ly the pro­blem with tho­se 25 mm of rain that the Nor­we­gi­an meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal ser­vice pre­dicts for Fri­day (06 Sep­tem­ber): the soil is alre­a­dy pret­ty much water satu­ra­ted and any addi­tio­nal rain will this run off quick­ly at the sur­face, which may lead to floo­ding and thus to dama­ge. Ear­lier this year the pede­stri­an bridge Per­le­por­ten was dama­ged by floo­ding in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, rain pene­t­ra­ting into the ground may cau­se soil lay­ers to thaw that have been fro­zen for hundreds or even thou­sands of years. This may affect slo­pe sta­bi­li­ty around Lon­gye­ar­by­en and other are­as.

Older lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, near the ceme­ta­ry (left side in the pic­tu­re): simi­lar events may hap­pen after the strong rain­fall expec­ted on Fri­day.