Saturday's weather to continue with sleet and rain, strong winds
Saturday's weather in Estonia will remain windy, wet, and overcast with fairly hazardous road conditions in places.
The relatively mild temperatures for the time of year will continue into next week, meaning a White Christmas is off the table for much of the country this year.
A low-pressure trough from Scandinavia is the main weather system impacting Estonia Saturday, bringing moist, warm air.
Saturday night already brought some snow, sleet, and/or rain, strong winds, and a temperature range from -4 degrees Celsius to +3 degrees Celsius.
As Saturday morning slowly dawns, the roads will remain slippery, as they will in places through the day, so care should be taken while driving.
Southwesterlies continue and will bring cloud to the western half of the country, but otherwise, it will be dry in the morning, save perhaps on the islands.
Clear, but colder in the east and center (-3 to -2 degrees) than in the west (0 to +2 degrees).
As the day wears on, the cloud cover will spread, and the precipitation will hit, falling as rain mostly, but as snow and sleet in the east.
While by later afternoon, there will be rain showers across the country, ground temperatures will be low enough to form ice, so again road conditions might be hazardous.
Ambient daytime temperatures of +1-2 degrees in the east, +3-5 in the west, but the winds will pick up even more – southwesterlies of 8-13 meters per second, in gusts as high as 25 meters per second on the coasts, including the "east coast," i.e., the shores of Peipsi järv.
The mild temperatures will continue overnight and into Sunday, above zero everywhere daytime on Sunday with the rain, transforming to sleet in the evening, remaining if a little more sporadic than on Saturday.
The next few days through to Christmas Day will see the winds die down quite a bit; the slightly lower ambient temperatures at night (down to -1 on average on Christmas Eve) might bring sprinklings of sleet or even light snowfall in the east, but much of the country will not be seeing a White Christmas this year.
Saturday is also the solstice.
After today, the days start getting longer again, albeit only by a few seconds per day to begin with.
Sunrise is at 9:17 a.m. today, and about two minutes later on Christmas Day.
Sundown on Saturday comes at 3:20 p.m. – again only a couple of minutes later than that mid-week (Tallinn times).
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Marko Tooming
Source: 'Aktuaalne kaamera,' meteorologist Ele Pedassaar.
