Miscellaneous

How can old weather and climate statistics be ordered?

You can easily download past weather observations from our website: Download observations

Weather observations are also available in machine-readable, digital format: FMI open data.

If you require more comprehensive statistics or old data that has not been digitized, please contact our Climate services via e-mail. There might be a fee associated with the completion of the request.

Where can I find sunrise and sunset times for Finland?

The Finnish Meteorological Institute is not responsible for the collection of this type of data. For instance The Almanac Office which is run by the University of Helsinki provides the sunrise and sunset times for different cities in Finland.

See also Gaisma website for more information.

What is the ratio between rain and snowfall? How much would, say, 10 millimetres of rain measure as snow?

A good rule of thumb is that 1 centimetre of melted snow equals 1 millimetre of water. Thus, 10 millimetres of rain would correspond to a snowfall of 10 centimetres. In reality, there is some variation depending on the type of snow, but in practice this rule holds with sufficient accuracy.

How reliable are climate forecasts? After all, the weather can be predicted with reasonable certainty only for the next 5–10 days.

Day-to-day weather forecasts differ from climate change forecasts that extend over decades. Climate research investigates the long-term averages of atmospheric features and their slow changes. The factors affecting atmospheric features differ from the factors affecting the daily weather. For example, climate forecasts take account of greenhouse gas concentrations, which increase year by year and affect the temperature of the whole atmosphere, thereby slowly altering the climatic conditions of large regions.