Christmas weather in Sydney and Jyväskylä

Warm daytime temperatures and afternoon and evening storm activity returned to Sydney for Christmas Day this year. Despite Christmas Eve only just topping 23C at Sydney Airport, the rest of this week has seen maximums above 28C. It got to 29.4C today, the warmest temperature since December 8.

Minimums have also been up on figures from last week. Tuesday's 21.4C minimum was the highest since March 10's 21.8C. While the 21.4C minimum is the highest so far this month, compared to the previous five Decembers, only 2011 had a lower respective figure.

Storm activity built west of the Blue Mountains this afternoon. Penrith saw its first rainfall around 4pm as the front moved east. The rain reached Sydney Airport just over an hour later. At the forefront of the rain was a weak southerly change which dropped temperatures at the Airport around 6C in the hour following 4:30pm.

Rain wasn't especially heavy and therefore totals weren't high initially, but a steady flow of showers throughout the evening helped the Airport record 13.0mm by midnight. This is the highest daily total in two and a half weeks. Other locations around Sydney saw higher totals though. Terry Hills recorded 36.8mm, 35.4mm fell at Camden and Observatory Hill also saw a higher measurement with 28.6mm.

After a black Christmas for much of Finland in 2013, almost the whole country has seen a white one this time around. Even southern locations like Helsinki and Turku saw snow, some of it falling on Christmas Eve, the traditional day for Finns for celebrate Christmas. Jyväskylä's snow depth has remained around 15cm since the weekend. The precipitation streak ended at 17, and no days this week have experienced any falls.

Temperatures in Jyväskylä climbed from below -20C to just above -10C on Christmas Day

Lake ice has thickened quite a bit since temperatures dropped below -5C on December 22

As predicted, a high pressure system arrived over Finland earlier this week and temperatures have dropped dramatically since the weekend. Last Saturday, December 20, the maximum was 0.8C. Early this morning temperatures dropped below -20C at Tikkakoski for the first time since January 31. Yesterday's high of -12.5C was also the coldest maximum since January 30.

The past five days have seen the average minimum drop from -1.9C on the 20th to -4.4C by today. The average maximum has also dropped from 1.4C to -0.2C.

Clear skies are typically associated with these colder temperatures, and there have been a few breaks, but cloud has mostly dominated the past few days. Temperatures should remain cold until next week. At the moment it looks like the New Year will see a return of warmer weather, possibly back above zero.