Just last week I was a little surprised about the high temperatures when I was visiting Kirkenes and Murmansk. However, after coming back to Enontekiö, I enjoyed some more moderate temperatures around here. Nonetheless, I didn’t expect to see some more snow until autumn ..
Last week I have been travelling a bit around Lapland, as I joined this years’ Calotte Academy. When visiting Murmansk, we experienced temperatures of almost 30 degrees Celsius, which is relatively warm for this region at this time of the year. However, before returning home and when looking for the forecast for Enontekiö, the temperatures seemed to be relatively chilly. And indeed, on some days the thermometer didn’t show more than 5 degrees Celsius during the day and even minus degrees in the nights. Thus, although in the middle of June, we eventually had some snowfall yesterday.
That this basically could happen here any time was no surprise. A few years ago somebody showed some photographs from Kilpisjärvi in the 1980s, where at midsummer (so around 21st of June) there were around 20 cm of fresh snow (btw: in Kilpisjärvi also a midsummer skiing race is held annually). Unfortunately this time there wasn’t as much snow as on those images, but still a beautiful and to me rather unexpected event. While our cats preferred to stay inside, I used this nice opportunity for a short walk in the snow fall, to enjoy, what maybe only will happen again in some months .. Or who knows – maybe even earlier :-)
