Winter holiday week exceptionally warm in Lapland

Abrupt change at weekend brought winter record of -33.7°C to Kittilä

print this

While enjoying plenty of snow, Lapland has experienced unusually warm weather this winter. In Muonio, the mean temperature during the first three weeks of February was slightly colder than -9°C.
      Previously in this decade, February has only once been warmer than an average of -10°C. The mean temperature on last year’s winter holiday week was around -18°C, marking the coldest February of the decade.
     
This year the holidaymakers from Southern Finland could enjoy fine weather for the first days of the skiing holidays in Western Lapland. The tourists and local residents alike reported on frosty mornings as cold as -20°C, with the cold abating by the afternoon and transforming into sunny winter skiing weather. On Thursday the weather was cloudy and on Friday it started to snow.
      ”For four days the weather was just magnificent”, reported Tapio Kivioja, a 16-year-old snowboarder from Helsinki.
      Having spent his skiing holidays in Lapland for ten years, Kivioja does not regard the current weather conditions as particularly unusual.
     
Lauri Ylimys, who is in charge of the slopes at the Ylläs-Ski centre, says that this year the weather has been exceptionally humid and the frosty spells have been short and sporadic.
      ”There is fog on the fells as if we were on a coastal area”, Ylimys explains. ”I hope this is not a permanent phenomenon”, he adds.
     
As a result of the unusually wet weather, producing artificial snow has this winter been more difficult than previously. There is only one good thing. As the new snow coming down is moist, it will remain on the ground, while dry frosty snow usually goes with the wind that whips across the open fells.
     
On Sunday morning the temperature sank to -33.7°C in the village of Pokka in Kittilä, which is the record low for this winter. In comparison with a normal winter, this is a rather modest record.
      ”In any normal winter it is typical that a reading of -40°C is recorded in some parts of Lapland. At present Lapland appears to have usual winter weather”, notes meteorologist Jari Tuovinen from the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
      The weather in Helsinki, meanwhile, continues stubbornly to remain above freezing, and the forecast for the early part of the week is more of the same, and the long-range predictions are that the beginning of March will be several degrees warmer than the normal average.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Climate change brings mild and rainy winter weather - and it is here to stay (18.2.2008)

Links:
  Ylläs-Ski
  Finnish Meteorological Institute

Helsingin Sanomat