Yesterday it was almost Spring with a nice warming sunshine during the day and a lot of greenery sprouting through the ground. Today… well today we have 15 cm of snow and as wintery as it gets! From one point of view it’s great since today we have a holiday called “Vastlapäev” (no direct translation to English possible) which means kids and people in general go sledding and try to get the longest run down the hill. In addition special pastries with whipped cream are eaten and generally it’s a really fun day :)!

But that wasn’t what I wanted to write about. Today’s weather just got me thinking about what are the statistics about our local weather. Weather in Estonia is a really popular topic because in most cases we have about 1 day of summer, 1 day of winter and then 363 days of “shitty skiing weather” :). Of course it’s hugely exaggerated and the weather here is not bad at all and personally I like it since I enjoy the diversity of it (full 4 seasons). The only thing I miss during the winter is longer days since in Nov-Dec it can get dark as early as 4 PM.

But let’s look at some of the facts.

• The hottest official temperature measured – 35.6 degrees Celsius (although I’m pretty sure unofficially it has been much warmer sometimes, I remember seeing 37 degrees on a proper thermometer in the shadow at my countryside place)
• The coldest official temperature measured – minus 43.5 degrees Celsius. Freezing cold but compared to Oymyakon, Russia it’s like a walk in the park (Oymyakon is the coldest constantly habited place on Earth)
• Warmest month of the year – July (17.4 degrees Celsius)
• Coldest month of the year – February (minus 4.5 degrees Celsius)
• Most rainfall in a month – 351mm, August 1987 in Southern Estonia
• Least rainfall in a month – 0mm, August 2002 in Southern Estonia (this and the previous line are a perfect example of our weather 🙂 )
• Biggest hail – 70mm in diameter. I actually remember this, it was quite horrible.
• Sunshine – we have about 1800 hours of sunshine per year as an average. I think that last year was a record in this one.
• Fastest measured wind speed – 48 m/s which is about 173 km/h and officially a category 2 hurricane! Since it was in 1969 I don’t remember it very well… 🙂
• Deepest snow coverage – 104 cm in February 1924. A long long time ago…

Generally we have a little bit of everything in here :). And as my PE teacher used to say that there is no bad weather, there’s just bad equipment and poor men!

Sending snow and receiving sunshine :)!

All the best!

Lauri