Easter traffic may run into wintry weather in most of Finland

According to the meteorologists, drivers should be prepared for snow in the Easter traffic, while the Finnish Road Administration (Finnra) advises the public not to be too hasty over switching to summer tyres. The use of studded tyres will still be allowed on the week following Easter - and even longer if need be.
     
In Helsinki people have been switching to summer tyres already for weeks. Now that the weather forecast promises a somewhat wintry Easter for most of Finland, the pace has slowed down quite a bit.
      The meteorologists predict snow flurries for Maundy Thursday across Finland and most likely in the northern part of the country, which saw a heavy fall of snow already on Tuesday. On Good Friday, the showers can already be lighter, while a cold and changeable northwesterly wind is likely to continue over the holidays.
     
Typically, Easter traffic conditions will be a mixture of winter and summer, seeing both motorcycles and cars with ski-boxes travelling on the roads. Moreover, many cars are towing a boat, and on Thursday and Friday trailers may cause congestion on roads, for example prolonging queues for ferries from Korppoo to the Turku archipelago.
     
The bus and coach service company Matkahuolto promises that there is a seat for everybody on buses and coaches, and where necessary additional departures will be added to meet the demand. Timetable information is available from Matkahuolto's service points across the country or on the Internet.
     
Finnish Railways (VR) report that the sleeping cars in trains from Helsinki to Lapland between Wednesday and Friday and back on Monday are already more or less fully booked. However, in day coaches there are still seats available here and there for all Easter trains.
     
In spite of additional departures, even Finnair has only a handful of seats available on its flights to Lapland and back during Easter. The departures of Blue1, the Finnish SAS Group airline company, have practically been sold out.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Sunny periods and frost-damaged roads promised for Easter weekend (12.4.2006)

Links:
  Finnish Meteorological Institute
  Finnra - Finnish Road Administration (real-time traffic news)
  Matkahuolto
  VR
  Blue1