Weather in Estonia in April

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

I will start posting here about April's weather in Estonia.

This morning, strange weather forecasts have come to my attention. Yesterday's EMHI's 4 day forecast showed hail for today while it was not mentioned in narrative forecast. Today, this is the same thing - Narrative weather forecast says nothing about hail, but weather symbols on the map are in the image file called rahe.gif - Rahe means Hail in Estonian language. I am also trying to came up with a reason why EMHI's HIRLAM forecasts LI -3 and CAPE > 300 J/Kg for Estonia.

I sincerely apologize if I messed something up again.

 

[Tomas Pucik]

I do not see anything wrong with that forecast. Actually, it is quite correct. I was just looking at the model and you have a massive arctic air advection going on. Instability is bound to lower levels and present at the amounts of 100 - 200 J/kg.
So you should have low topped showers developing already there. With that cold air - no surprise if you had snow mixed with hail ( altough I think pretty small in size, mostly around or less than 5 mm ).

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

They are occurring indeed. I have had some showers of snow pellets, diameter up to 4 mm. One cloud was accompanied with heavy winds. Actually, this is the first time, I have seen hail's sign on EMHI's site at weather forecast section.

At the moment, sky is mostly cloudy, mainly cumulonimbus clouds and air temperature is 39 degrees Fahrenheit.
Edited for clarification: I don't see anything wrong with EMHI's forecast either. I just haven't seen hail in their forecast quite often. Apologizes for confusion.

Weather outlook is now a little nicer. Highs are expected to go back to 50's during next week. However, it remains rather windy.

Lightning radar images indicate that there was lightning detected in Russia today less than 100 miles east from Estonian-Russian border

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Cold night is ahead. At the moment, air temperature is 27,3 degrees. However, tonight's low may be below 20.

Sky is clear right now, and it is expected to remain so tomorrow as well.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Last night's low temperature was 18,0°F. At the meantime, Estonian Meteorological and Hydrological Institute is expecting highs to get back to 60's by the weekend. I am sick and tired of this cold wave so I would love to have that warmness. Anyway, 60's are more favourable for thunders than 30's and 40's (No, this is not another the past weekend's thunder hope post).

At the meantime, weather is cause of worry in a different way - wildfire threats. Although I have had precipitation last week, several places have wildfire threat at highest level. EMHI's data(likely interpolated, I am between 2 forecast points) indicates that I am also under the highest wildfire risk area. More worry is caused by people who tenaciously ignore the warnings about high threat and cause grassfires. However, there aren't as much grassfires anymore as it was a week or two ago.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

At the moment, air temperature is 23,7 degrees and sky is clear.

Meanwhile, I have done selection of Saturday's and Sunday's sky images and put it here.

Also, Estonian Meteorological and Hydrological Institute has finally gotten their HIRLAM forecasts back online. Today, it is expected to be a beautiful day. However, it will turn very windy tomorrow and coastal areas may see wind gusts over 40 mph. High winds also remain on Thursday.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

At the moment, air temperature is 40,8 degrees. However, air temperatures are expected to get over 70 degrees next week. That's quite a summer already.

It has been very dry here in Estonia. Wildfire threat is increasing during each day. I am probably already under highest threat level.

 

[Marko Korosec]

I am sure thats a poor drought threat up there compared to central Europe. Pretty dry in March and without a drop in April which will probably continue at least for the next 7-10 days, temps exceeding 80°F with very low daytime humidity every day. Some stations are close to all time records for April. The ground looks like in July, for April this is an extreme drought here. If we won't get some much needed rain in the next weeks, our agriculture is busted. And we're getting dry winds in the next days, which will make things even worse!

So I don't see why 'making panic' about drought threat up there north, since you had more or less enough precipitation, not to mention how low ETO is there since you have such low temps.

Otherwise these are extremely boring weeks over here, not a chance to get a single shower, what even a decent storm...well at least we got some cirrus clouds today, LOL

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

I agree about the drought threat. Level 5 threat(however I don't know how many levels do they have) is also in parts of Germany. I have been watching German Weather Television and they are showing that highs in low 80's are possible over there already.

GFS is forecasting that this expected warmness is just temporary and it ends with rain in about a week. I hope the forecast changes, though. Rain is OK for me, but cold is not.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

The warmness indeed ended and now it is cold again. However, new warmness is expected to come. Highs could go again back to 70's by Thursday.