Snow cover in Finland

In winter, nowhere else in Europe can match Finnish Lapland for cold and snow.

Permanent snow cover settles sometime in October or November, after which the covering gets steadily thicker until spring comes in mid March. Snow is often still on the ground in late May.

It is not uncommon to see average snow depths of around 40 centimetres in December, rising to 70 or even 80 centimetres in January and reaching its thickest in the middle of March, when it can be a metre deep.

Lapland's lakes freeze over in November. The ice is at its thickest in April, when lakes have average depths of between 50 and 65 centimetres.