According to preliminary estimates by the Swedish forest owners' cooperative Södra, around one million cubic metres of damage was done on land belonging to the company's own members alone, of which 61% is spruce, while an unusually large share – 35% – is pine.

Storm "Dave" swept across Scandinavia and Ireland. Eigerøy in Norway recorded hurricane-force gusts of 42 m/s. The storm caused widespread damage from Göteborg Landvetter Airport to Dublin. Raging with particular ferocity in southern Sweden, "Dave" brought down slightly more than two million cubic metres in Sweden's forests. In monetary terms the losses amount to roughly two billion kronor. The Swedish Forest Agency and Södra jointly carried out the damage assessment, which was drawn up following an inventory of the affected properties in southern Sweden.

The heaviest damage was in Götaland, with Västra Götaland county worst affected, followed by the Jönköping region. Storm-force gusts were recorded across the whole of southern Sweden; on Easter Sunday "Dave" first crossed Great Britain. It has to be said that the extent of the damage was nevertheless considerably smaller than initially forecast. Assessing the scale of the losses proved complicated, because the damage was very scattered.

"The damage covers a large area, and in places relatively large stands of forest have been flattened, which we were already receiving reports about last week," stressed Mattias Sparf, the Swedish Forest Agency's damage coordinator for the region.

The fiercest blow from the storm fell on Västra Götaland county, where roughly one million cubic metres of forest were brought down. Slightly under 500,000 cubic metres were recorded in Jönköping county, while the neighbouring counties – Östergötland, Kalmar, Kronoberg, Halland and Örebro – lost roughly another 500,000 cubic metres between them.

The data available to Södra confirms that, in timber terms, losses of around one million cubic metres were suffered on land belonging to the cooperative's members in the Götaland region. The damage is concentrated mainly in Västra Götaland and part of Jönköping. Of the total volume of damaged trees, 61% is spruce, 35% pine and the remaining 4% broadleaves; the cooperative notes that the share of pine hit by the storm is somewhat higher than is usually the case after events of this kind.

Södra is working to maintain services in the regions worst hit by the storm, relocating staff and redirecting harvesting and haulage resources to the storm-damaged forests. The company is urging its members to contact their advisers without delay in order to plan harvesting and salvage at least some of the timber in their forests. Harvesting volumes may fall temporarily in other regions, as Södra is giving priority to felling in the storm-affected areas. The already difficult situation is being made worse still by weak sawmill demand for sawlog assortments.

The storm increases the risk of the European spruce bark beetle spreading throughout southern Sweden, because it "struck" in early spring. The storm has left large areas of damaged spruce which, as air temperatures rise, could become a source of bark beetle infestation.

Mattias Sparf urged forest owners to assess the storm damage quickly but carefully, and only then to bring in timber buyers. He warned owners against trying to deal with wind-thrown trees themselves: "Forest owners who lack experience and knowledge of working in storm-damaged forest should not take on the harvesting themselves, because it is dangerous."

The two million cubic metres brought down by "Dave" are nevertheless a fairly modest figure compared with storm "Johannes", which raged across central and northern Sweden at Christmas. "Johannes" felled almost 11 million cubic metres, the heaviest blow to Sweden's forests in more than a decade. Together, these so-called holiday visitors destroyed 13 million cubic metres of Swedish forest.

* Södra (full name Södra Skogsägarna) is the largest forest owners' cooperative in Sweden and one of the world's leading forest industry groups. The company's head office is in Växjö, Sweden. The cooperative is owned by more than 50,000 forest owners whose forests are located in southern Sweden. The group employs around 3,200 people. Södra controls the entire value chain – from seed to finished product, including forest management, sawmilling and pulp production.

Södra's operations are divided into several business areas:

Södra Skog: Provides forest management services to the cooperative's members and buys timber.
Södra Cell: A world-class producer of paper and textile pulp (three large mills in Sweden: Värö, Mörrum and Mönsterås).
Södra Wood: Produces sawn timber, planed construction materials and wood pellets.
Bioenergy and innovation: The company produces green electricity and biofuel and develops new products such as so-called liquid wood and biochemicals.