Snow burdens are approaching risk limits in northeast, while Helsinki is already turning green

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Untypically, the coastal areas of Southern Finland have been snow-deprived throughout the current winter, while the amount of snow in Finnish Lapland and Northeastern Finland are approaching the maximum weight capacity of roofs.
     
This winter, the gap between the south and the north has been exceptionally large. In coastal areas such snow-deprived winters normally occur only once in ten years.
      However, not everybody is sorry about that. Helsinki resident Tuovi Nöjd certainly is not.
      "Good, the ground is not frozen and I can do what I like most, namely to turn the soil over and prepare for the planting of potatoes. When the temperature of the soil is +4 degrees Celsius, I can start planting", reported Nöjd on her plot in the Kumpula allotment garden in Helsinki.
     
In the Kainuu region in Northeastern Finland, the weight of the snow on roofs is approaching the risk limits, and the Finnish Environment Institute has issued a warning, saying that in some areas the maximum safe weight could soon be exceeded.
      The snow that is packed and frozen on roofs is now at its heaviest. Its weight is from 130 to 200 kilos per square metre, and in some areas even more than that. In other words, on a 100 sq metre roof the weight of snow can be more than 20,000 kilos, equalling a full truckload.
      Reijo Pentikäinen from the Kainuu Regional Environment Centre is urging property owners to shovel off snow from their roofs if the thickness of snow cover has already reached the risk limit.
      At present, the snowiest locations in Northeastern Finland are Hyrynsalmi, Suomussalmi, Puolanka, and Ristijärvi.
     
In Kainuu's Ukkohalla ski resort the snow is strong enough to bear a person's weight and the skiing conditions are at their best. Farmer Tero Kinnunen is shovelling snow off the roofs of rental cottages at the ski resort.
      Kinnunen hopes that snow will soon stop piling up on rooftops, even though snowdrifts of more than one metre high are not that unusual in Kainuu. Such snow loads are seen a few times in a decade.
     
For the coastal areas the current winter season has been exceptional. Snow that has fallen on one day has often melted on the next. In Helsinki crocuses and tulips are poking out of the ground, while coltsfoots are appearing in Turku. Moreover, larks and starlings have already arrived on the coast, while people have been expecting good skiing conditions but in vain.
      Reportedly, the water equivalent of the snow cover has not once exceeded 25 millimetres in the entire coastal area over this winter. Winter seasons with such a low snow load occur only once in a decade.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Wet and heavy snow leaves thousands of households without electricity (3.1.2006)
  Rescue officials urging property owners to remove snow from roofs (11.4.2006)
  Ruka closes ski tracks owing to danger caused by heavy snow load on trees (13.1.2006)

Links:
  Finnish Environment Institute

Helsingin Sanomat