The Weather Stations - Jyväskylä

A small gap between this and my last post but let's have a look at Jyväskylä.

Jyväskylä is not a very big city with a population of just over 130,000. Most Finns tend to think of it as a student city thanks to the two large universities present. You will find Jyväskylä in Central Finland about 235km to the north of the Finnish capital Helsinki.

The main weather station for Jyväskylä is situated outside of the city centre. Jyväskylä airport in Tikkakoski, 16km north, is actually the site for weather observations.

 

 

On the Finnish Meteorology's forecast and observation page for Jyväskylä, a weather station at Joutsa a bit further to the south than shown on the map above, can also be selected. The recordings I follow are taken at the airport site.

 

Again there is a difference between recordings at the airport and those experienced in Jyväskylä's main city area. Sometimes in the winter recordings may drop to lower temperatures at the airport than the city. In the summer isolated storms and rain may cause temperatures to drop in the city while they stay high at the airport. In the end the differences are negligible as they may fluctuate either way due to various reasons.

 

The seasons are quite prominent in Jyväskylä, with a moderate and warm summer, short autumn and spring periods, and a typically Finnish winter period spanning several months. Jyväskylä represents a median between southern cities such as Helsinki and Turku and northern cities such as Rovaniemi and Sodankylä, especially in the winter.

 

Finland's record 2010 summer is responsible for Jyväskylä's all time maximum of 34.3C, which was recorded on July 29. While I'm working on finding the actual all time minimum for Jyväskylä, I have found statistics that state -38.5C is the lowest since 1966. This was recorded on two occasions; February 3 1966 and January 8 1987.

 

(Edit: So I received a reply from FMI regarding my records enquiry and while -38.5C is indeed the lowest minimum recorded, a maximum of 35.0C was actually recorded way back on July 9 1914!)

 

So quite different to Sydney if you're thinking only on meteorological terms, but that just makes it more interesting to me to compare the two!