Live cameras in Kemi, Finland

Kemi is a port and industrial town in southern Lapland, on the shore of the Bothnian Bay at the mouth of the Kemijoki, Finland's longest river. About 19,000 people live here. The town is about 30 km from Tornio and the Swedish border, and it has long depended on heavy industry: two large pulp and paper mills, and Europe's only chromium mine, whose ore feeds the ferrochrome works in Tornio. Kemi-Tornio Airport is a few kilometers north of the center.

Winter is when Kemi stands out for visitors. The town is known for its SnowCastle, a snow and ice building that has been rebuilt in many winters to a new design, with a hotel and restaurant inside. Out on the frozen sea, the retired icebreaker Sampo takes guests on winter cruises through the pack ice, and some trips include floating in survival suits among the floes. The Gemstone Gallery displays stones and replicas of royal regalia.

About the road cameras

Every camera listed here is part of the Fintraffic road-weather network, with images distributed through Digitraffic. Kemi lies on national road 4, which carries both E75 and E8 along this stretch of coast, and the stations around town watch that highway and the roads branching toward Tornio, Rovaniemi and the river valley. Expect a new frame every few minutes rather than moving video. In winter they often show packed snow, ploughed banks and headlights in the dark.

Kemi follows Finnish time, UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer. Its latitude, just below the Arctic Circle, makes daylight extreme. Around midsummer the sun barely dips to the horizon and nights stay fully light. Around the winter solstice, by contrast, the sun is up for only about three hours, roughly from ten to eleven in the morning until ten to two in the afternoon, so most camera images in December and early January are taken in twilight or darkness. On clear, cold nights from autumn to spring, the northern lights are often visible here.

Nearby, Tornio and its twin town Haparanda in Sweden share a border that runs right through their centers, and Rovaniemi is about 115 km up the Kemijoki valley.

Sources: Kemi - Wikipedia · Sampo (icebreaker) - Wikipedia · Digitraffic road traffic data (Fintraffic).