Get 10% off every booking with code LH10
Book now

When does snow arrive in Rovaniemi, and when does it melt?

A single yellow maple leaf lying on a thin layer of fresh snow, with blades of green grass showing through
Illustration photo: an autumn leaf on the first snow.

Lapland Handbook Staff How we research this

The short answer

Count on lasting snow from the second half of November to the beginning of May. Early November is a gamble, late October more so, and in some years the snow has come only in December. Christmas has been white in every year of the record. The snow is deepest in March and early April, and by the middle of May it has usually gone.

These dates are our own calculation. We worked them out from the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s open data: the daily snow depth measured at its weather station at Rovaniemi airport, from 1998 to 2025.1 The institute publishes the data under the CC BY 4.0 licence. The open data has no daily values for that station before 1998, and one winter, 2020–21, has gaps in the record, so the season dates rest on 26 winters and the depth figures on 28 years. This is not the institute’s official long-term average.

When the lasting snow comes, and when it goes

We follow the institute’s own definition. A day counts as having snow cover when at least one centimetre lies on the ground in the morning measurement, and the lasting snow cover is the longest unbroken run of such days.2

In the middle winter of the 26, the lasting snow arrived on 12 November, and in half of them between 4 and 16 November. The earliest start was 11 October, in 2023. The latest was 16 December, in 2006, and in five winters it did not begin until December.

It went in May. The first bare day after the winter came, in the middle year, on 8 May, and in half the years between 3 and 13 May. The earliest was 21 April, in 2025, and the latest 28 May, in 2017.

The odds on a given day

The season dates are a summary. For choosing travel dates, it helps more to know how often there was snow on the ground on a particular day, and how deep it was in the middle year of the 28.

DayYears with snow on the groundDepth in the middle year
15 October11 %none
1 November50 %under 1 cm
15 November79 %7 cm
1 December89 %17 cm
15 December96 %26 cm
24 December100 %32 cm
15 January100 %45 cm
15 February100 %66 cm
15 March100 %76 cm
1 April100 %73.5 cm
15 April100 %64 cm
1 May82 %27 cm
15 May14 %none

Two rows stand out. On 1 November there was snow in exactly half the years, so a trip in the first days of November is a coin toss for a white landscape. And on Christmas Eve the ground was white in every one of the 28 years.

Tripadvisor ratings, 18 Rovaniemi operators

Highest first
Snowtrail Safaris 5.0
Nordic Odyssey 5.0
Nordic Adventures 4.9
Arctic GM 4.9
Book Lapland 4.9
Bearhill Husky 4.9
Arctic Attitude 4.9
StayLapland 4.8
Wild About Lapland 4.7
Wild Nordic 4.7
Lapland Winter Park 4.6
Safartica 4.5
Nordic Unique Travels 4.5
Apukka Resort 4.4
Lapland Welcome 4.3
Arctic Circle Snowmobile Park 4.3
Arctic Circle Husky Park 4.2
Raitola 3.4

Ratings read from Tripadvisor. The shaded compartment left of the divider holds any score below 4.0. We record the score only; review counts and review text are not part of our comparison.

How deep it gets

The depth builds through the winter and is greatest in March and early April, as the institute says is usual in Lapland.2 The deepest point of each winter was 85.5 cm in the middle winter, and it ranged from 47 cm in 2024–25 to 127 cm in 1999–2000. From mid-April the snow goes quickly, from 64 cm on 15 April in the middle year to nothing a month later.

How cold it is in the same months, from the same station, is on the page on how cold Rovaniemi gets, month by month.

How the figures were calculated

The data is the institute’s daily snow depth for the station Rovaniemi lentoasema. A winter was counted for the season dates only if every day from 1 October to 31 May has a measurement. The depth table uses every year that has a reading on that day, which is all 28. The script that produces these figures is kept with the site’s code, so they can be recalculated from the open data.

Sources

  1. Finnish Meteorological InstituteOpen data: daily weather observations, Rovaniemi airport (CC BY 4.0)en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi ↩
  2. Finnish Meteorological InstituteSnow statisticsen.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi ↩

Questions people ask

What can we do before the snow comes?

More than you might expect. Some kennels keep the dogs working in autumn: Pinewood's Huskies, for one, sells cart rides behind a training team and walks with the huskies outside the snow season. Reindeer farm visits do not depend on snow either and run in summer as well as winter. What you cannot count on in early November is a snowmobile or sled safari, so book those for later in the trip or later in the season.

Is it the same in Levi, Ylläs or Saariselkä?

We have not calculated it for them, so this page does not say. The Finnish Meteorological Institute's own snow statistics say that in Lapland the lasting snow comes significantly earlier than in southern Finland, and its maps show typical dates across the country. If your trip is to a fell resort, look at the station nearest to it rather than assuming Rovaniemi's dates apply.

Do we need snow boots?

For tours, often not: guided winter safaris in Lapland typically include clothing rental in the package, so check whether boots are on your tour's list. For walking about town you need footwear with good grip, because packed snow and ice on pavements are slippery, and Visit Rovaniemi's safety advice suggests ice cleats as well. The rest of the list, and what to rent rather than buy, is on the page about what to pack for a Lapland winter.

Written by

Lapland Handbook Staff

Lapland Handbook is written by its editorial staff in Rovaniemi. Every price, age limit and group size in a comparison is read from the operator's own page and marked "Not stated" when the operator does not publish it. Each guide names who should not book, and names the operator that suits each kind of group, whichever it is.

More about Lapland Handbook →