Live cameras in Jyväskylä, Finland

Jyväskylä is the regional capital of Central Finland and, with about 150,000 inhabitants, the country's seventh largest municipality. It lies in the Finnish Lakeland roughly 270 km north of Helsinki, on the shores of Lake Jyväsjärvi and close to the northern end of Päijänne, Finland's second largest lake. A wooded esker ridge, the Harju, rises right behind the city center and offers views across the water. The University of Jyväskylä and a large student population give the city its old nickname, the Athens of Finland, and no place on earth has more buildings by Alvar Aalto, who began his career here.

Each summer the city fills up for Rally Finland, the World Rally Championship round famous for its fast gravel roads and huge jumps, which usually runs in late July or early August. The Jyväskylä Arts Festival takes place in July as well.

Cameras on the crossroads

Jyväskylä sits where national road 4 (E75), the main north-south trunk route, crosses national road 9 (E63) between Tampere and Kuopio. The weather cameras on this page belong to Fintraffic's roadside stations along these and nearby roads, and their pictures reach the public through the Digitraffic open data service. They are meant for judging road surface and visibility, so the frame is mostly highway, guard rails and forest. Images arrive as single stills that refresh every few minutes, with some stations showing two or three directions.

Local time is Eastern European Time, UTC+2, shifting to UTC+3 when Europe's summer time begins at the end of March. At this latitude the June sun sets around a quarter past eleven at night and rises before half past three, so the short summer nights are only a deep blue twilight. By the December solstice daylight lasts about five hours, from shortly before ten until around a quarter to three. Snow usually covers the ground from late November into April, and the cameras are most interesting during the first snowfalls and spring thaw.

Nearby, Säynätsalo Town Hall, one of Aalto's best-known works, is on an island south of the city, and the airport at Tikkakoski, home of the Finnish Air Force Museum, is about 20 km north.

Sources: Jyväskylä - Wikipedia · Rally Finland - Wikipedia · Digitraffic road traffic data (Fintraffic).