June started and ended with hot weather, rainfall varied

According to statistics of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, June was 1.5–3.5 degrees warmer than usual in most of the country. The greatest deviations were observed in Lapland, where the highest ever average June temperatures were observed at several stations with up to a 4°C difference compared to the average of the 1991–2020 reference period. The eastern part of the country was also warm, but deviations from station averages were rare. In northern parts of the country, the average temperature varied between 11 and 16 °C, and in other areas the variation was 14.5–18 degrees.

The start of the month brought hot weather throughout the country, which means that the highest temperature of the day was at least 25.1 °C in many places. The middle of the month saw a long period of no high heat, with the exception of the 17th. There was another long heat wave at the end of the month. In a typical June, hot days are reached on eight days of the month, but this year the hot-weather threshold was crossed on 14 days. There were more hot days than usual throughout Finland, even an unusually large number in the eastern part of the country. The temperature exceeded 30 degrees on four days.

The highest temperature in June, 31.4 °C, was measured in Savilahti in Kuopio and in Asemantaus in Heinola on the 28th. The lowest temperature of the month, -0.7 °C, was measured at Ylivieska Airport on the 5th, which is the lowest temperature of the month in Finland since 1961.

Rainfall varied greatly

The precipitation levels for the month varied greatly in Finland: in the west and north, monthly precipitation levels were unusually high at several observation stations, while rainfall on the southern coast was lower than usual. There were more rainy days than usual in the northern and western parts of the country.

The location with the greatest amount of precipitation was Tulkkila in Kokemäki, which saw 135.9 millimetres of rain. The least precipitation for June was recorded at the Kaisaniemi observation station in Helsinki – 24.4 millimetres. The greatest amount of precipitation in a single day was at the Teeriranta observation station in Kuusamo – 59 millimetres on 18 June.

Sun in the south, lightning at the beginning of the month

The southern and central parts of the country saw more hours of sunshine than usual. On the south coast, the amount of sunshine was unusually high (370–390 hours).

At the beginning of June, more than 35,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were observed between the 1st and 2nd day, which is slightly more than the average for the whole of June between 1960 and 2023. A total of 56,290 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were observed during the month.

Further information:

Meteorologists call a weather phenomenon exceptional when its statistical occurrence is three times or less in 100 years on average. A phenomenon is seen as rare when it occurs less frequently than once every ten years on average.

Climate in Finland

Weather statistics from the Climate Service, tel. 0600 1 0601 (€ 4.01/min + local network fee)