Live cameras in Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki, the capital of Finland, spreads over peninsulas and islands on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland. Nearly 700,000 people live in the city itself, and well over a million in the capital region that includes Espoo and Vantaa. It was founded by the Swedish king Gustav Vasa in 1550 and became the capital in 1812 under Russian rule, when the white neoclassical center around Senate Square and the Helsinki Cathedral was laid out. The harbor is busy with ferries to Tallinn and Stockholm, and the sea fortress of Suomenlinna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, guards the approach on its own cluster of islands. Modern landmarks include the Oodi central library and the Helsinki Music Centre, while saunas, sea swimming and the harbor markets are part of everyday life.

About the cameras

Helsinki's views are Fintraffic road-weather cameras, shared through the Digitraffic open data service. They stand at roadside weather stations, and many have several views, so you can look both ways along the road. The pictures are still images taken several times an hour. In the capital region they follow the big ring roads and the motorways that leave the city, such as Ring I and Ring III and the routes toward Turku, Tampere, Lahti and the east. Use them to see whether the lanes are bare, wet or covered in snow, and how far you can see in fog or a blizzard.

• Midwinter: only about six hours of daylight in late December
• Midsummer: nearly nineteen hours of daylight, with bright nights
• Snow: most winters bring lasting snow cover in January and February

The capital is two hours ahead of UTC in winter and three in summer. Weekday rush hours peak roughly between seven and nine and between three thirty and five thirty. Winter weather by the sea is changeable, swinging from wet snow to hard frost, which is exactly when the road-weather images are most useful. Northern lights are occasionally visible on very active nights, though city light makes them faint.

Close by, Espoo's Nuuksio National Park offers lakes and forest within easy reach of the capital, and the old town of Porvoo lies about fifty kilometers to the east.

Sources: Helsinki - Wikipedia · Fintraffic Digitraffic - road weather cameras · MyHelsinki - official city guide.