Gusty winds that picked up on Wednesday evening have cut power to thousands of people in central Finland
Electricity network company Elenia anticipates that some of the repairs to its network outages may be delayed until tomorrow, Friday.
According to Elenia, in the most severely damaged sites, special equipment may be needed for repairs, for example to erect poles. The low-voltage network can only be repaired once the backbone network has been repaired.
The strongest wind gusts of the autumn storm were recorded in Luhanka Judinsalo in central Finland. At the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s Judinsalo measuring point, winds on Wednesday evening reached almost 22 metres per second at times.
A gust of over 20 meters per second was also measured in the evening in Multia’s Karhila. On Viitasaari, the wind speed in the strongest gust was almost 20 meters per second.
The storm was stronger than in central Finland, for example in places in southern and eastern Finland. The strongest wind gust measured in Kuopio was almost 30 meters per second and in Sipoo more than 35 meters per second.
– During the day, the fault patrols that repair power outages work in the field. So far, there is no information about particularly serious damage to the network, but the information will become more detailed as the day goes on, says Kuusela-Opas.
The wind warning issued for land areas is still valid in Central Finland today. According to it, the west wind is strong and the wind speed in gusts can be 15 meters per second.
Kuusela-Opas states that new power outages may occur during Thursday.
– The ground is thawed and partly there are still leaves on the tree. An already damaged tree in rain-softened soil is prone to fall. Even today’s smaller Puuskas can knock down trees that are already leaning and new defects can arise, says Kuusela-Opas.