Warm, dry weather is expected throughout Finland for the next few days as the nation celebrates Saturday's graduations and the beginning of school holidays.
Highs will be mostly in the mid-20s, reaching as high as 27 degrees Celsius in parts of the north and east. Temperature will generally be slightly cooler on Friday, when the far north may get the odd shower. Winds are mostly light, becoming moderate during the daytime in Finnish Lapland.
Conditions remain warm at night, with lows in the mid-teens, slightly cooler in the far northwest.
Next week, the weather will continue to be warm, but the chance of local showers and thunderstorms will increase.
On Friday, temperatures will be highest in northern and central Finland, while southern Finland will also likely break the 25-degree mark over the weekend.
The mercury will reach into the 20s throughout the country over the next few days.
"Rarely do we have such uniformly beautiful summer weather throughout the country," Yle meteorologist Matti Huutonen said on Thursday afternoon.
Over the weekend, cooler air is expected to flow into the northernmost parts of the country. On Sunday, central and northern Lapland may see showers and thunderstorms.
June off to a warm start, high risk of fires
Recent daytime temperatures have been, on average, five to seven degrees higher than usual. Nights have also been about five degrees warmer than average.
The only place with frost on Thursday morning was Salla in Finnish Lapland, and gardeners and farmers can rest assured that the week the risk of frost anytime soon is minimal, according to Huutonen.
The warmer-than-usual beginning of June was preceded by an exceptionally extreme May, which featured snow, heatwaves and thunderstorms.
The month started off cold, with readings of -15.1 degrees in Enontekiö on 2 May and in Kilpisjärvi on 6 May. Both are in Lapland's western arm.
Less than two weeks later, the eastern town of Ilomantsi measured the month's highest temperature, 30.8 degrees.
"In early May, 20 centimetres of snow fell in Suomussalmi and a week later it was +25 degrees there," Huutonen said.
Rainfall was exceptionally heavy in many places. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), such a rainy May occurs on average once a decade or so.
There is still a chance of seasonal flooding in the southeast, but many areas are now dry, the FMI issuing a warning of high risk of grass or forest fires throughout northern Finland as well as much of the west on Friday, expanding to nearly the whole country on Saturday.