Suvi sai otsa

Just in time for the start of the new school year, as if to tell the kids: "Look, there's no reason to be on holiday any more!", the warm weather has given way to the damp, grey conditions you tend to associate with Estonia for about eight months of the year. Whereas a week or so ago thermometers across the country were pushing 30, this week's highs aren't expected to top 15.

What this means is that certain things you don't see nearly enough of in Estonia (such as men in board shorts, left) will now almost certainly fail to be seen again for another eleven months, more's the pity. The brave and the stupid will still be walking around in their sandals and T shirts when the first sleet falls, but alas, goose pimples ruin the effect.

Update

I take it all back. The Estonian Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology has forecast an entire week of glorious beach weather, with temperatures in the mid to high 20s - and possibly as much as 30 - Monday through Sunday. But beach goers beware: the Baltic remains awash with dangerous blue-green algae! Still, if you can't swim you'll at least be able to appreciate the irony.

¡Cuidado, procariotes!

The Swedish Bureau of Meteorology has issued a stark warning to beach bums along the north coast of Estonia that the waters of the Baltic Sea are seeing one of the most ghastly proliferations of blue-green algae in recorded history!

This is grave confirmation indeed of the predictions made by Finnish scientists in May that the choking mass of algae (more correctly referred to as 'prokaryotes') in the Baltic this summer would be significantly more choking than this time last year.

Thankfully, with the country's traditional handful of days in which the water temperature is slightly above that which induces almost instant hypothermia already behind it, few are likely to be troubled by the peculiar pea soup phenomenon. But there's always next year!