Weather

We have carefully chosen our tour timing to get what we feel to be the best possible experience, combining good weather and long days,  while avoiding peak season crushes of crowds of tourists everywhere we go.

It is true the weather would be hotter in July/August than it will be in mid/late June, but that is not necessarily a good thing; particularly with some hotels not being air-conditioned.  We’ll have warm to hot weather in June without becoming too unbearably humid or hot.  And if we did push out to July and August, we’d be losing the maximum daylight hours that we get during the time two weeks before and one week after the summer solstice.

Indeed, there’s a feature right there.  In Tallinn and Helsinki, it will almost not get totally dark each evening – the sun will set, but the fading twilight will merge with the glow of the new dawn, and it won’t get pitch dark at all.  Add nice warm weather to the daylight, and you’ll lose all track of time, staying outside in a quaint cafe or bar somewhere and, all of a sudden, while it looks and feels like maybe 8pm, you’ll look at your watch and be stunned to see it the other side of midnight.

As for the specifics of the weather, it is a wise man indeed (or a fool) who attempts to exactly predict the weather.  But we’re pleased to pass on to you some average weather data, and you can draw your own conclusions as to if we might have a hotter/drier experience, an exactly average experience, or a cooler/wetter one.

Here’s a table showing weather data for the cities and places we’ll overnight in.  Apart from factors such as if the city is on the coast or inland, and north or south, there’s not a huge amount of variation in weather.

The table is in the order that we’ll be visiting the cities.  Where available, the four temperature numbers show a ‘high high’ daily temperature, an average high daily temperature, an average low daily temperature and a ‘low low’ daily temperature.  If we can’t get this data, we just show what is reported as the averages – ie half the days, the temperature will be that temperature or higher, and half the days, it will be that or lower.

Don’t worry too much about the low temperatures – those relate to 3am or some other time of night when you’ll probably be cozily tucked up in bed.  The average and high high temperatures are the ones that give you the most accurate feeling for what type of daytime highs you’ll be getting.

We also show rain data – the total number of inches of rain for the month and the number of days with measurable precipitation (ie 4/100″ or more).  Please note that this count of days with measurable precipitation overstates the number of days with ‘real rain’ – some days the rain will only at night, other days it will just be for an hour or so; the actual amount of time that we’ll be in the rain is vastly lower.