Nordic Explorer

Interesting cameras

The views worth opening for their own sake rather than because you are about to drive them. 11 cameras shown live from Fintraffic's open data; 5 more that are worth a look but are not ours to republish.

All-sky aurora cameras

The cameras that point straight up. None of them is openly licensed, so all four are links — see the note at the foot of this page.

Sodankylä all-sky camera
FMI's own aurora camera at the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, 120 km north of Rovaniemi.
Not openly licensed, so we link rather than embed: Finnish Meteorological Institute, Auroras Now!.

Kevo all-sky camera
The northernmost of the FMI cameras, in the Kevo nature reserve near Utsjoki.
Not openly licensed, so we link rather than embed: Finnish Meteorological Institute, Auroras Now!.

Live Fintraffic camera: Nuorgam, the northernmost point in the EU
Nuorgam, the northernmost point in the EU — A Fintraffic road camera at 70.09°N on road 970, pointing along the Tana river. Not an aurora camera, but it is the northernmost live view in the country and it is dark for two months. No road weather station reading beside this one. Utsjoki, 70.09°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.

Harbours and ferry terminals

Where the Tallinn and Stockholm boats leave from. All operator-run and none openly licensed, so these are links.

Helsinki South Harbour
The Market Square quay and the Tallinn fast ferries, with Suomenlinna behind them.
Not openly licensed, so we link rather than embed: Port of Helsinki.

Turku harbour
The Stockholm overnight boats and the ice in the Aura river mouth.
Not openly licensed, so we link rather than embed: Port of Turku.

Live Fintraffic camera: Vaasa old harbour, road 3
Vaasa old harbour, road 3 — Fintraffic's camera at the end of road 3, looking over the Kvarken — the narrowest part of the Gulf of Bothnia and the first place it freezes. No road weather station reading beside this one. Vaasa, 63.07°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.

Ski slopes and the fells

Lapland's resorts run their own slope cameras under their own terms. What is openly licensed is the road that gets you there — which is also the one that tells you whether you can.

Live Fintraffic camera: Ylläs scenic road
Ylläs scenic road — A camera on the Ylläs fell road itself, at 67.56°N. The best openly licensed view of a Lapland fell in the set. No road weather station reading beside this one. Kolari, 67.56°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.
Live Fintraffic camera: Kittilä airport road
Kittilä airport road — Road 79 at the airport most Levi visitors fly into. If this one is white, so is the transfer. Road surface 8.9 °C, . Kittilä, 67.70°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.
Live Fintraffic camera: Luosto
Luosto — The road into Luosto and Pyhä, through the old-growth forest on the Pyhä-Luosto fell chain. No road weather station reading beside this one. Sodankylä, 67.16°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.

Levi slope cameras
The resort's own cameras on the front slope and the gondola.
Not openly licensed, so we link rather than embed: Levi Ski Resort.

The Arctic coast and the far north

The E8 to Kilpisjärvi and the roads beyond the Arctic Circle. The most exposed driving in Finland, and the best open cameras on it.

Live Fintraffic camera: Kilpisjärvi
Kilpisjärvi — Finland's north-west corner, under the Saana fell, where Norway and Sweden meet. Five views from one mast. No road weather station reading beside this one. Enontekiö, 69.02°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.
Live Fintraffic camera: Pokka
Pokka — The coldest inhabited place in Finland — −51.5 °C in January 1999 — on the road between Kittilä and Inari. No road weather station reading beside this one. Kittilä, 68.16°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.
Live Fintraffic camera: Kaamasmukka, road 92
Kaamasmukka, road 92 — The junction where the road to Norway leaves the Arctic Highway, at 69.36°N. No road weather station reading beside this one. Utsjoki, 69.36°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.

Cities in snow

What a Finnish city actually looks like in January, rather than what a brochure says it looks like.

Live Fintraffic camera: The Arctic Circle at Rovaniemi
The Arctic Circle at Rovaniemi — Road 4 where it crosses the Arctic Circle, 8 km north of Rovaniemi. The line itself is on the Santa Claus Village side of the camera. Road surface 9.1 °C, . Rovaniemi, 66.55°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.
Live Fintraffic camera: Santa Claus Village
Santa Claus Village — The road past the village, which is the honest version of the view: a car park, a coach and a lot of snow. Road surface 9.2 °C, . Rovaniemi, 66.54°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.
Live Fintraffic camera: Helsinki, Lauttasaari
Helsinki, Lauttasaari — The western approach to the city over the Lauttasaari bridge, with the sea on both sides. No road weather station reading beside this one. Helsinki, 60.16°N. Fintraffic, refreshes every 10 minutes.

Why some cameras are links and not pictures

Fintraffic publishes its road cameras as open data under CC BY 4.0, so we can show the image and credit it. Ski resorts, ports, hotels and the private aurora cams publish theirs on their own pages under their own terms, and most of those terms do not allow anybody else to embed the picture. Those get a link, and the group stays short rather than getting padded.

The Finnish Meteorological Institute's all-sky aurora cameras are the ones most people come looking for, and we checked directly: the image pages behind Auroras Now! return 403 to anything that is not a browser on their own site, so there is no openly available image to embed. They are a link on every aurora page instead. The full list of what we checked, and what each licence allows.

Also from the Explorer Club: Nevada Explorer's camera pages — the same idea, the other side of the world.

Data source: Fintraffic / digitraffic.fi, licence CC BY 4.0