Just when you thought it was safe to put on shorts...

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Lulled into a false sense of security by some unusually warm and dry weather over the past two weeks, some people in the south of Finland may have believed summer was here.
      It isn't.
      The Greater Helsinki area enjoyed sleet on Thursday.
      At least in Kannelmäki, one of Helsinki's northern suburbs, the ground was white for an hour or so.
      Other northern parts of the capital and Espoo had a brief reminder of winter around lunchtime.
     
As if this wasn't fun enough, there were also thumb-sized hailstones falling from the sky in many places, and a decent local thunderstorm.
      Temperatures were very definitely in single figures, and the warmest place in the entire country - Kokemäki in the west - got just 11.4°C, a far cry from last Sunday's national high of 25.2°C, or the 29.0°C recorded on May 15th 1993.
      Today, Friday, sleet showers are unlikely, as things have warmed up enough that any precipitation we might get will fall as rain.
     
But the old adage about the Finnish summer being "Brief and rather short on snow" is still worth remembering.


Links:
  Finnish Meteorological Institute

Helsingin Sanomat