Finland sees record dry, exceptionally warm weather in May

In a large part of the country, the average temperature in May was considerably higher than usual, and the remainder of the month in particular was very warm, according to Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI).

At the same time, the month had exceptionally low precipitation in many places. The whole spring was also clearly warmer than usual in most parts of the country.

In large parts of Finland, May started with rather warm temperatures, after which followed a clearly colder than usual period for a few days.

The end of the month was very warm, which resulted in the month’s average temperature being unusually high in most places in Finland, even exceptionally warm in many parts of the western part of the country.

According to the FMI, the average temperature in May varied from approximately 14 degrees Celsius in the southern part of the country to about 5 degrees Celsius in Northern Lapland.

The average monthly temperature in the western part of the country was 3-4 degrees higher than usual and 1-3 degrees higher than usual in the eastern and northern parts of the country.

The last time that most parts of Finland experienced a warmer May than this was in 2018.

For example, in Kaisaniemi in Helsinki, the average temperature in May was 13.8 degrees Celsius. The month was about 1.8 degrees warmer than it would have been without the impact of climate change.

The probability of such a warm May in the current climate is ten times higher than without climate change.

There were 16 hot days in May, which is the new record for hot days in May. The previous record, 14 hot days, was from 2018.

The month’s highest temperature, 29.9 degrees, was recorded on 31 May at the Hattula Lepaa observation station. The lowest temperature of the month, minus 13.2 degrees, was measured on 8 May at the Tulppio observation station in Savukoski.

In many places, May was exceptionally low in precipitation. Thus, new station-specific, low precipitation records for May were recorded nearly everywhere in the country.

However, at the end of the month, in places heavy thunderstorms raised the precipitation levels of some individual stations close to the usual values of the month.

The highest precipitation in May (59.4 mm) was measured at the Savukoski village observation station. The greatest amount of precipitation in a single day, 43.4 millimetres, was measured in Mujejärvi, Nurmes on 30 May.

The lowest precipitation during the month was recorded at the Mehtäkylä observation station in Kalajoki, where the precipitation was only 0.7 mm.

According to preliminary data, Vihti in Hiiskula had the lowest rainfall in the station's measurement history with 2.8 mm. The station has been recording observations for 97 years.

In Mid-May, there were still several dozens of centimetres of snow at observation stations in the northern part of the country, but by the end of May, the snow had melted away from all observation stations of the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Despite the dry May, spring had quite usual rainfall in a large part of the country. Spring precipitation was the highest, 171.4 millimetres, at the Kotila observation station in Puolanka. The lowest rainfall was in Pudasjärvi airport, 55.4 mm.