In the water system of Northern Finland, those kinds of big lakes which would gather melt waters to balance the peaks of flood are scarce. This happens especially when the ice breaks up in thick floats and packs in areas of rapids preventing the flowing of water. In big rivers, water rises several metres in spring, and causes wide floods. Because of that the rivers in the north may overflow wildly. The actual melting of snow is a fairly short period even in Lapland, mainly in May (at the beginning of June in fjeld areas, at the end of April in the province of Oulu). When the fjeld snow of Lapland finally melts, it may cause another spring flood (a summer flood, to put it more exactly) in the lower course of big rivers. At the same time, new snow is already snowing. But so-called snow banks where melting has delayed, and where winds of the winter have collected high snowdrifts, may have В“oldВ” snow even in August-September. In the fjeld areas, where the wind has beaten the ground, there has been a very little snow all through the winter, and the places where the snow has melted grow fast. If this kind of situation continued a few years running, a new ice age would be very near! In some years, the frost does not melt at all deeper in the ground. Frost melts from Lapland earliest in June, sometimes not until the late summer. Night frosts last quite long in spring but in June they become rarer. The northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia cools the spring air: sometimes there is not a trace of green in the birches of Tornio, even though the trees in Rovaniemi are already in the bud! On the other hand, the sea warms in autumn В– the arrival of winter is delayed. Sea and big lakes will be freed from ice late in spring: it is possible that one might see ice floats in the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia as late as at the end of June. Naturally, the snow will melt from the forests of Lapland much later than from the province of Oulu. First the snow will disappear from open areas, and only a couple of weeks later from forests. Nevertheless, the snow may melt quickly in the rainy days of May В– snowdrifts will flop. As long as there are snow and ice, the average temperature does not easily rise to summer temperatures but stays around 0-10 Celsius degrees. In Kainuu, this takes place in the middle of April, in Lapland not until at the end of April or at the beginning of May.

Meteorological spring starts when the average temperature of a day rises permanently above zero.

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