Snow, of course, does not just land in the streets, on the train tracks and in our garden. A lot of it lands on roofs. There it gathers, perhaps melts a bit when the weather gets warmer, slides towards the edge of the roof and forms overhangs and icicles. Pretty, but also pretty dangerous.

Every winter a bunch of people get hurt (and occasionally killed) and vehicles get seriously damaged by falling snow and ice. As a pedestrian you can’t do much: since the chunks of snow and ice will be sliding off the roof, they won’t fall along the wall but may well land several metres away from the building.

Luckily there are laws that oblige the owners of buildings to make sure snow and ice which could fall down are removed as soon as possible. In the meantime, if there is risk of stuff falling down, they’re obliged to put up warning signs and, if necessary, rope off the sidewalk.

Today, all day today, there were workmen clearing snow from the roof of the building where I work. (The workmen were still at it when I went home in the afternoon.) As I got there in the morning, about 20 metres of sidewalk was closed off and chunks of ice and snow were flying down. There’s a spotter on the ground who makes sure that people don’t wander into the cordoned-off area, and shouts to the folks on the roof when to stop and start. On taller buildings I’ve heard them use whistles.

Some time in the morning they shifted to the other, courtyard side of the building: the one right behind my back. The amounts of snow and ice coming down there was unbelievable. Every now and again everyone on that side of the office would jump, as some icy lump hit our window, or some particularly large chunk hit the roof of the courtyard hard enough to make the floor tremble and our monitors shake. The largest ones I saw were about the size of a human torso. Luckily those were mostly snow rather than ice – I don’t think the tin roof would have survived it.

If you’re interested, Svenska Dagbladet has photos of the roof-cleaning process.