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Will it be a White Christmas? |
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By News
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Friday, 18 December 2009 |
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Twenty years ago, you didn’t even need to ask such a question in northern Finland . . . but things have changed. However, the disappointing, snowless Christmases of recent years may have been soundly defeated in 2009 as Oulu undergoes proper ‘Finnish’ Christmas weather.
Temperatures plummeted, on Tuesday night, as low as minus 30 in various parts of Lapland such as Sodankylä. Northern Ostrobothnia saw the mercury fall to minus 25 and even in Helsinki it was only just above minus 20.
The cold snap appears to be continuing, if this morning’s minus 18 in Oulu is anything to go by.
Commuters from the south would have walked out into these freezing, Ostrobothnian temperatures at about 10.15 this morning rather than at the scheduled time of 6.15am. The massive delay occurred because the blistering cold caused a rail to snap near Seinäjoki. The Arctic weather has also led to hazardous driving conditions.
Nina Niinimäki, a meteorologist at the Climate Centre of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, is cautiously optimistic that there will be snow throughout most of the country for Christmas.
‘It’s quite likely now because there is snow everywhere except in some parts of the south west and Åland,’ she told 65DN.
‘But the snow cover is very thin so all it takes is a few warm days and it will melt. Oulu is near the coast so warm weather can blow in and in (areas near Oulu) there is only 6cm of snow. But in Lapland and in the East I would say a white Christmas is very likely.’
There have been some reports that the current cold snap is record-breaking low for the time of year but Niinimäki wishes to quash these rumours.
‘It’s not record-breaking but it is very cold. The record for December was minus 47 in Eastern Lapland in 1919. On 16th December it reached minus 33.9 in Eastern Lapland.’
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