The ice on Lake Saimaa is now melting fast. As there is no longer a snow cover as a thermal barrier at the regional monitoring points, sunlight and warm weather can rapidly weaken the ice.
In South Savo, the ice has started to melt rapidly.
For example, in Lake Korpijärvi and Peruvede, the shore ice is melting in places and can no longer support human weight when measured.
There are large and sudden variations in the quality of the ice. According to the Ely Centre, for example, a difference of up to 13 cm in steel ice thickness was observed within a radius of two metres in Yövede, even though the overall ice thickness in the area was about the same.
Since the regional observation points no longer have snow cover as thermal insulation, sunlight and warm weather can weaken the ice quickly. The ice that carried a person’s weight in the morning may no longer be able to withstand it in the afternoon.
Even the thickest ice can fail, which is why, according to the Ely center, the ice no longer holds reliably.
Cracks weaken the load-bearing capacity, even if they do not go through the ice. Because of this, it is also no longer possible to reliably estimate the ice’s load-bearing capacity from the thickness of the ice.