The start and reference of scale – City of Oulu

The City of Oulu has grown steadily to the third largest communities in Finland after metropolitan Helsinki area and Tampere. After the most recent annexation of neighboring communities the city area is also huge – only slightly smaller than that of the Greater London.

The 65^th parallel crosses the city just south of the city center. There are no formal signs of the latitude crossing. It merely is an imaginary line, even if a very important one for my blog topic. The image above shows the exact spot where the parallel 65 rather unceremoniously crosses the road from the west. The building used to be one of the many in this area of car dealerships, which today are driven outside of the busiest shopping districts.

When I am writing this story Oulu is waking up to the spring. The winter 2015 – 16 was not only mild, it was also surprisingly poor on snow here. I know, that if I physically would travel the 65^th parallel to east today, I would see totally opposite snow conditions not far from here. The ski resorts towards the eastern border of Finland are still busy.

I bring the snow situation up, because I know that most parts of the 65^th parallel are among the snowiest in the world. Of course this virtual travel will not be consistent in terms of seasons since I will experience the places mostly on Google Earth satellite images taken during summer months. However the encountered user photographs may be taken any time around the year.

The image on the right shows the snow status today as presented on the Foreca weather service page. The red line is showing the approximate location of the 65th parallel. See how neatly it dissects the country in two halves, almost equal in height but also marking the snow-free spring conditions below the 65N.

The last image shows view near 65th parallel in Greenland where this radar base in deep snow is awaiting us later on our journey. Image by Leif Fielstrup Guldbrandsen. Panoramio.