Early April cold spell brings snow, canceled flights
Due to the wintery weather, operator Transaviabaltika had to cancel its Monday morning flight to Kärdla on the island of Hiiumaa. The company added extra flights to its schedule on Sunday as ferry connections were patchy due to low water levels in the shipping channel.
The Road Administration requested the extra flights on Sunday after water levels in the Rohuküla-Heltermaa shipping channel dropped below the point that ferries could have moved passengers. Throughout the day there were departures where possible, either redirected to Virtsu harbor on the mainland, or then with passengers only where the weight of vehicles would have made the water level an issue.
As of Monday morning the Hiiumaa ferries are back in operation, but still with load limits imposed, so there could be further delays and changes during the day.
A low-pressure system coming in from the South reached Estonia's northern coast on Sunday evening, bringing plenty of snow. The weather on Monday is overcast, with occasional snowfall. As temperatures increase, road conditions can worsen.
Most drivers followed the Police and Border Guard's recommendation of last week to not yet change to summer tires, which means that the situation on Estonia's roads is currently not too bad.
With the low-pressure system moving on towards the northeast, the weather is expected to improve tomorrow Tuesday, though there might still be local snowfall into the early morning hours. During the morning the sky will clear up. Strong wind is expected with temperatures of 0° to -5°C. In some areas of the country temperatures will reach up to 3°C.
According to the National Weather Service, March this year was colder than usual, with an average temperature of -3.3°C, which is considerably lower than the usual 2.2°C. This affected the weather in terms of cloud cover as well: Estonia got plenty of sunshine in a month that typically brings plenty of overcast days.
Precipitation in March was only 20 mm, which is just 54 percent of the usual March average. The maximum amount measured on a single day was 13 mm on the island of Pakri on March 13.
The highest temperatures were measured on March 25 in the southern town of Võru at 6.1°C, the lowest on March 1 in the city of Narva at -25.1°C.
Editor: Dario Cavegn