When does the summer cottage season end? Precipitation is the most important weather variable

Finns love to spent time at summer cottages. July is the most traditional month to spend time at the summer cottage, but when does the season actually end? We brought out a gallup for the CLIPS piloters to find out what are the most important weather factors affecting the ending of the summer cottage season.

The precipitation was voted as the most important factor (40 % of the replies) affecting the ending of summer cottage season. Temperature turned out to be almost as important factor (37 %) as the precipitation. Wind received significantly fewer votes (6 %).

Heavy continuous rain (frontal rain, lasting 1-3 days) was defined to end the summer cottage season in the autumn. Single rain showers weren’t seen as such a big problem. When temperature stays under +10 °C, it’s too cold to stay at summer cottage for many people. Also, the water pump needs to be drained before the temperature sinks below 0 °C during the night. When having the summer cottage in the island, the season ends at the latest when the lake or sea freezes.

Strong winds could make it too dangerous to go to the summer cottage by boat. The threshold value for wind speed was set between 5-10 m/s. Other factors were, e.g., darkness, ending of the vacation, and snowfall. Some people said that the weather doesn’t have an influence on the summer cottage season (3 %) or they go to the summer cottage all year around. CLIPS team received 86 answers altogether.

The gallup about weather factors affecting the ending of the summer cottage season will help to develop the CLIPS forecast products for autumn. The summer cottage season product is developed further between August and September and these gallup results will be taken into account. The feedback we get from the piloters is very valuable and project team will be collecting feedback until June 2018. The first CLIPS autumn products will be published to the piloters during September.

Gallup results: Precipitation was voted as the most important factor, temperature takes the second place with a difference of a few votes.