The reason for this is an area of low pressure over the Southern Baltic and moving towards Estonia. At the moment, a large high pressure zone over Northwestern Russia is responsible for the weather conditions up to now, including the low temperatures.

Precipitation is the order of the day across Northern Europe, though this will fall as rain and sleet in the West, and rather more as snow the further East you go.

Thursday night was cold again, particularly in the East, where the mercury fell to -14 degrees in Ida-Viru County, -11 degrees in Tallinn and South and Central Estonia, and milder in the islands (-3 degrees on average in Saaremaa).

Southeasterlies of 8-10 meters per second in gusts up to 16 meters per second made it feel even colder to anyone who was out and about braving the conditions.

The morning dawns overcast – sunrise in Tartu is at 8.47 a.m. Friday, Tallinn 16 minutes later, at 9.03 a.m.

Snowfall in the South and West at night continues into the morning, spreading further to the southeasternmost parts of the country. In fact only Lääne-Viru and Ida-Viru counties will be snowfall free, and even then only in the morning.

The southeasterlies continue through the morning and with temperatures of -13 to -9 degrees on the mainland, again milder over the islands.

During the day there will be little change in conditions. Temperatures will rise slightly, to mostly single figures, though again milder on the islands (-6 to -3 degrees) and in the West and in and around Tallinn (-8 to -7 degrees) than in the Center, South and East (a fairly uniform -10 to -9 degrees).

The snowfall will spread to cover the entire country daytime, in the teeth of the continued southeasterlies (5-10 meters per second, in gusts upt o 13 meters per second), so journey time estimations should be adjusted accordingly if heading out to Christmas parties or elsewhere, and care should be taken when driving.

As a new low pressure arrives from the Southern Baltic from the weekend, temperatures will start to get milder, though the heavy snowfall will remain.

Whereas Saturday will still be cold – on average -9 degrees during the day and -13 degrees the preceding evening – from Sunday the mercury will start to climb, from -4 degrees, to zero on average nationwide Tuesday, and just -2 degrees at night, on average. Since the snowfall will remain, this should be accounted for when out and about.

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