Jouni Laaksonen 17.2.2020
Finland is a long country, and especially winter is very different in Southern and Northern Finland. Nowadays, that is. I lived my childhood and studenthood in Helsinki area, and I skied a lot. I remember one winter when there was not enough snow to ski, and one winter when it was too cold to ski (long periods of near -30°C). All the other, say, twenty winters were fine for skiing. There was plenty of snow every year.
Now I live in Northern Finland, but I have relatives and friends living in Southern Finland, and lately there have been many winters when there is no snow in Southern Finland, or there is only a little, for a short while at a time before it melts away. Especially this winter the south-based media has been shouting how bad, snowless winter this has been.
The border between snow-covered and snowless area has been rather clear through the winter. Of course the line is not this sharp, but a little bit of exaggeration is allowed, I hope.
Yes, in Helsinki area there is no snow at all. If something is coming from the sky, it’s raindrops, and the temperature is more often above zero than below. However, even here where I live, rather in the middle of Finland, let alone in Lapland, the snow came early this winter, in October, and there is plenty of it. So, from northern point of view this has been a very snowy winter! Though this has been a mild winter, I have to admit.
On weekend 7.-9.2.2020 I once again participated in Off-track skiing championships. If you are interested how this competition works, read more here. Here are some pics from the competition:
My ski pole is 160 cm long. About 40 cm of it is above the snow, so the snow depth is about 120 cm.
In Syöte National Park there was some 120 cm of snow. No shortage of snow in Northern Finland!
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I’ll continue my series of reasons for wilderness huts next week.
Finnish Way of Hiking 
Where I live (Wyoming) this has been the most old timey, snowy, and freezing winter, ever.
Well, probably not ever, but for a long time, perhaps a couple of decades.
Indeed, while it’s been shown that people’s personal weather recollections are generally poor, this winter is just like the ones I remember from the 70s and early 80s. It started snowing early, and its never stopped. In fact, it’s snowing as I type this out, and the temperature is 7F/-14C.
Our old time winters used to start in September and run through April. This one started in September and its showing no signs of letting up.
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Hi Pat! Good to hear you have good old winter there! Same here, in terms of snow depth. But it has been mild here. Usually there are many days of -30C/-22F in Jan/Feb here in Kainuu, Finland. This winter the coldest has been barely -10C/14F.
Some winters I’ve been skiing still in the last days of April, sometimes we have been canoeing by then. We shall see which kind of a winter this one turns out to be. 🙂
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