{|style="width:100%;text-align:center;line-height:1.2em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto" class="wikitable mw-collapsible"

|-

!Colspan=14|Climate data for Motala

|-

!Month

!Jan

!Feb

!Mar

!Apr

!May

!Jun

!Jul

!Aug

!Sep

!Oct

!Nov

!Dec

!style="border-left-width:medium"|Year

|-

!Average temperature Vättern °C

|style="background:#9090FF;color:#000000;"|3.2<br />

|style="background:#8484FF;color:#000000;"|2.0<br />

|style="background:#7E7EFF;color:#000000;"|1.3<br />

|style="background:#8888FF;color:#000000;"|3.8<br />

|style="background:#9C9CFF;color:#000000;"|8.1<br />

|style="background:#B8B8FF;color:#000000;"|14.5<br />

|style="background:#D3D3FF;color:#000000;"|18.2<br />

|style="background:#DFDFFF;color:#000000;"|18.3<br />

|style="background:#DEDEFF;color:#000000;"|14.8<br />

|style="background:#D3D3FF;color:#000000;"|10.5<br />

|style="background:#C4C4FF;color:#000000;"|7.5<br />

|style="background:#A9A9FF;color:#000000;"|4.9<br />

|style="background:#B0B0FF;color:#000000;border-left-width:medium"|8.9<br />

|-

!Mean daily daylight hours

|style="background:#E2E200;color:#000000;"|7.0

|style="background:#F0F011;color:#000000;"|10.0

|style="background:#FFFF33;color:#000000;"|12.0

|style="background:#FFFF55;color:#000000;"|15.0

|style="background:#FFFF77;color:#000000;"|17.0

|style="background:#FFFF88;color:#000000;"|18.0

|style="background:#FFFF77;color:#000000;"|17.0

|style="background:#FFFF66;color:#000000;"|15.0

|style="background:#FFFF44;color:#000000;"|13.0

|style="background:#F7F722;color:#000000;"|11.0

|style="background:#E9E900;color:#000000;"|8.0

|style="background:#E2E200;color:#000000;"|6.0

|style="background:#FFFF3A;color:#000000;border-left-width:medium"|12.4

|-

!Average Ultraviolet index

|style="background:#289500;color:#000000;"|0

|style="background:#289500;color:#000000;"|1

|style="background:#289500;color:#000000;"|2

|style="background:#f7e400;color:#000000;"|4

|style="background:#f7e400;color:#000000;"|5

|style="background:#f85900;color:#000000;"|6

|style="background:#f85900;color:#000000;"|6

|style="background:#f7e400;color:#000000;"|5

|style="background:#f7e400;color:#000000;"|4

|style="background:#289500;color:#000000;"|2

|style="background:#289500;color:#000000;"|1

|style="background:#289500;color:#000000;"|0

|style="background:#f7e400;color:#000000;border-left-width:medium"|3

|-

!Colspan=14 style="background:#f8f9fa;font-weight:normal;font-size:95%;"|Source: Weather Atlas

|}

Longwave radio

thumb|left|The old longwave broadcasting station in Motala

Another important episode of Motala history began in 1927, when the Swedish national Motala longwave transmitter station was built. The town marks the middle of a straight line between Sweden's two biggest cities, Stockholm and Gothenburg. Radio programs were transferred from studios in Stockholm to Motala by telephone wire. The call was "Stockholm-Motala". The transmitter operated on 191&nbsp;kHz until 1962, when the transmissions were moved to Orlunda. Since 1991 there have been no longwave transmissions at all by the Swedish Broadcasting Company, but the Motala transmitter, which is a museum today, sometimes makes low power transmissions which may only be received in the Motala area.

At Ervasteby, near Motala, there is a tall guyed mast, used for FM- and TV-broadcasting.

Some years before the broadcasting station was established the Luxor company was founded in Motala. Luxor soon became one of the largest radio and later television manufacturers in Sweden. In the 1980s Luxor started producing their own line of computers, like the ABC 80. In 1985 Luxor was acquired by Nokia, and eventually production moved elsewhere.

Main sights

  • The Motala Motor Museum (site) contains cars and many hundreds of other period pieces, including motorbikes, racing cars, radios, record players, tools, and many, many, other objects from the first 70 or so years of the 20th century.
  • The Swedish Broadcasting Museum with the twin radio towers.
  • The Göta Canal with locks.
  • The old Motala Works with museums and exhibitions in historical buildings.
  • Motala Church, dating back to the 13th Century.
  • Motala Museum at Charlottenborg Castle.
  • Varamon beach.
  • Baltzar Von Platen's gravesite, located along the Göta Canal

For sights surrounding Motala, see Motala Municipality.

Sports

The following sports clubs are located in Motala:

  • BK Zeros (football)
  • IFK Motala (bandy)
  • Motala AIF (football)
  • Piraterna (speedway), who race at the Motala Arena
  • Motala Segelsällskap

Archaeogenetics

A November 2015 genetic study published in Nature included an analysis of six hunter-gatherers buried at Motala between ca. 6000 BC and 5700 BC. Of the four males surveyed, three carried the paternal haplogroup I2a1 or various subclades of it, while the other carried I2c. With regards to mtDNA, four individuals carried subclades of U5a, while two carried U2e1.

Notable people

  • Alexander Bard, musician and political activist
  • Torbjörn Caspersson (1910–1997), cytogeneticist
  • Anders Holmertz, swimmer
  • Per Holmertz, swimmer
  • Ulla Håkanson, equestrian
  • Sophia Isberg (1819–1875), artist
  • Jan Jönsson, equestrian
  • Helena Kallenbäck, actress
  • Hanna Lindblad, musical artist and singer
  • Mattias Löw, documentary filmmaker and photographer
  • Andreas Norlén, politician and Speaker of the Riksdag since 2018
  • Ilmar Reepalu, politician
  • Åsa Regnér, politician
  • Agnes Sandström (1887–1985), Titanic survivor
  • Lars Stjernkvist, politician
  • Fredrik Virtanen, journalist
  • Baltzar von Platen (1766–1829), statesman and founder of Göta Kanal
  • Owe Wiktorin, Swedish Air Force officer, previous Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces

References

Sources