The mercury has surpassed 25 degrees Celsius – the local definition of ‘hot’ – somewhere in Finland on 45 days so far this year, says the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). If this pace keeps up, as forecasts for the next few weeks suggest it might, 2018 could set a new record for days over 25C in Finland.
The current record dates back to 2002, when there were a total of 65. But that year there had been just 39 such days by the end of July.
This spring, the magic 25-degree barrier was first surpassed in the west-coast town of Pori on 11 May. So far in July there have been 22 hot days. The highest reading, 33.7 degrees, was in Vaasa, also on the west coast, on 18 July.
Last year there were just 19 hot days, the same as in 2015.
The FMI’s hot-day statistics date back to 1961. They show a couple of summer with more than 50 hot days in the early 1970s – but all the other six such years have been in the past two decades, with four since the record-setting summer of 2002.