First snow of the season falls in northwest Finland
The wait for the first snow was unusually long this year, following the third-warmest September on record.
The village of Kilpisjärvi in Finland’s far northwestern tip received the country’s first official snowfall on Thursday morning. The snow gradually increased throughout the morning, with seven centimetres collecting by 8am.
The criterion for official first snow is that there is still about a centimetre of snow on the ground at 9am during daylight saving time (8am during winter time, which officially begins on 26 October), as measured at a Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) weather station.
This criterion was clearly met in Kilpisjärvi, which is in the large, sparsely populated municipality of Enontekiö, in the narrow ‘arm’ between the Swedish and Norwegian borders.
Yle meteorologist Henriikka Heikinoja said that with temperature slightly below freezing this morning, it is likely that the snow will remain for at least a few hours.
According to Heikinoja, about seven centimetres of snow fell in and around the centre of Kilpisjärvi village, with about five centimetres of snow cover up to the end of the northwestern arm.
“In northern Norway, there has been widespread snowfall of up to 10cm,” she said.
Sunny in the coming days, cooler next week
According to Heikinoja, so far it does not look like there will be any more snow, except in Northern Lapland. The far north will get sleet while the rest of Finland will see rain.
“However, the next few days look breezy. Sunny weather is expected in most parts of the country until Saturday.”
The weather will gradually cool next week. Temperatures in Northern Lapland may be slightly below freezing or at most 1-5 degrees Celsius during the day. Elsewhere in Finland, daytime temperatures of just under 10 degrees can be expected.
Late this year
The wait for the first snow was unusually long this year, after the third-warmest September on record – just behind 2023 and 2024. The average temperature was 1.9 degrees higher than it would have been without climate change, the FMI reported on 1 October.
According to FMI meteorologist Ville Siiskonen, the first recorded snowfall somewhere in Finland is typically around 27 September. In statistics dating back to 1959, the earliest first snow of autumn was on 30 August 1986 at Enontekiö’s Hetta observation station. The latest first snow was recorded in 1961, when it did not fall until 30 October. Last year, the first snow fell on 24 September.
In 2018, there was a curious situation: central Helsinki was covered in snow on 29 October, with the snow depth sensor at the Helsinki Kaisaniemi observation station showing 2–3 centimetres of snow cover in the late morning.
However, by 8am the next day, when the designation would have been made, the snow had already melted – so the official first snow was not recorded until almost two months later, on 17 December.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: New research links Yukon summertime heat to climate change, CBC News
Finland: Finland logs third-warmest September in history, as Lapland temp shatters record, Eye on the Arctic
Greenland: Alarming, above-average ice loss in Greenland due to rising temperatures, Eye on the Arctic
Norway: Svalbard glacier once survived a warmer climate, The Independent Barents Observer
Russia: Siberia’s 2020 heat wave left lasting impacts on Arctic, study finds, Eye on the Arctic
Sweden: Sweden and Finland urge revision of EU’s forestry climate targets, Reuters
United States: Bursting ice dam in Alaska highlights risks of glacial flooding around the globe, The Associated Press
