The Sweden weather you experience depends on where you are. It is actually possible to have snow in summer, but also sunbathe at midnight – all in the same country. The southernmost tip of the country is around 55 degrees latitude north and the northernmost tip around 69 degrees north, inside the Arctic Circle.

The Sweden weather in winter ranges from around -40 degrees Celsius to 2 degrees Celsius. In summer it tends to be from around 15 degrees Celsius to 32 degrees Celsius – sometimes even hotter.

January through to March is when snow can be expected, though in the far north this is more variable and less contained. It can rain at any time, and rather unfairly, it is the warmest months of July and August that gets the most rain.

The Sweden weather is mostly temperate. This is mainly because of the Gulf Stream waters that lap its shores and bring temperate winds from the west. Southern Sweden can be surprisingly warm and a lot less cold than many would expect for its northern position. In the mountains of the north, however, a bitterly cold sub-Arctic climate prevails most of the time.

Some 15 percent of the country is within the Arctic Circle. This means that from around the end of May until the middle of July that part has no night. This is the Midnight Sun. Any traveler who is not used with this amount of continuous daylight will most likely have difficulty in sleeping in the north of Sweden during the summer months.

The converse is true for the northern 15 percent; in winter they have perpetual darkness from the middle of December until the end of the first week of January. During this time, Stockholm, the capital to the south, has only five and a half hours of daylight.

The Sweden weather is enhanced by two major factors. One we have touched on already; the effects of the Gulf Stream, which brings pre-warmed winds over the land providing a temperate climate. The other factor is the continental high pressures that develop to the east. These create Sweden weather that is sunny, often quite hot in summer, and while cold in winter, they do relieve a dark days considerably.

In winter in the far north, the average Sweden weather temperatures can plunge to -40 degrees Celsius. In summer in the southern parts it can exceed 32 degrees Celsius on occasion. This is a vast temperature range that few countries can equal, and it aptly demonstrates the great diversity of weather to be found within Sweden.

The Sweden weather has a lot of precipitation throughout the year. The rainiest season is during late summer, especially in the southeast where they get around 24 inches of rainfall a year. By contrast, in Lappland in the north the annual rainfall is only half that amount.

Sweden has an excellent transport infrastructure for freight forwarding as the government has consistently recognised its vital importance to economic prosperity and prioritised its modernisation and development.

There are a number of major ports and harbours that include state of the art terminals and offer container handling facilities. These include Gaevle, Goteborg, Malmo, Sundsvall, Helsingborg, Halmstad, Kalmar and Stockholm.

The domestic air market in Sweden was deregulated in 1991 and since then a number of Swedish airlines have been competing to serve the international freight markets by carrying cargo. These airlines include Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), Transwede and Malmo Aviation. SAS is, in fact, jointly owned by Sweden, Denmark and Norway, with Sweden owning nearly half. Of this stake, the Swedish government owns 50%. SAS is committed to air transport liberalisation and has pioneered many strategic partnerships to drive forward its ‘open skies’ policy. The liberalisation of the air transport market creates a further advantage to the freight services industry.

There are also 164,000 kilometres of paved roads in Sweden, of which 1500 kilometres are expressways, and 2000 kilometres of navigable waterways. The canny freight company makes a full analysis of the various routes and options available for freight forwarding and ensures that the customer is the ultimate winner.

The 10 mile bridge and tunnel across the straits of Oresund from Malmo in Sweden to Copenhagen in Denmark is regarded as one of the most significant transport infrastructure developments in Europe in recent years.

Indeed, nowhere is Sweden’s commitment to its freight transport infrastructure more evident than in its road transport policy. In 2006, the Transport Research Arena conference was staged in Goteborg to allow participants to see some developments that are regarded as the world’s most advanced road transport developments and will have a significant impact on the international freight market, revolutionising the intelligence available to the shipping company.

These focus on the use of advanced information and communications technology to provide intelligent vehicle and transport systems, designed to improve logistics. Of benefit both to the freight transport market and passenger transport. The new technology will facilitate shorter journey times and also more efficient use of fuel. These will not only give Sweden a competitive edge in the short term, they are also likely to serve as a blueprint for transport systems worldwide, heralding a new era of productivity and optimised efficiency in freight services.

Sweden is also working on effectively using information and communication technology to improve the competitiveness of its rail system for freight forwarding. In Sweden, as in any other countries, rail has lost share of the freight forwarding market to road haulage in recent years and this is an area where Swedish rail operators are keen to build revenues. It is therefore likely that Sweden will also lead the way in ‘intelligent trains’.

These improvements will combine to see a picture of continuing innovation and development in the transport infrastructure in Sweden, ensuring that the freight services industry in the country stays at the cutting edge.