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Unusual weather conditions on Wednesday morning allowed Russian radio broadcasts to spill into southeastern Finland, with residents in Lappeenranta reporting up to eight Russian stations coming through their car radios.
Under normal circumstances, only one Russian station, Dorozhnoye Radio, is typically receivable in the area. It broadcasts from Svetogorsk, just across the border near Imatra.
This time, signals from as far as St. Petersburg, over 200 kilometres away, were clearly audible.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute attributed the occurrence to a persistent high-pressure front combined with hot summer weather. These conditions created a temperature inversion, altering how radio signals travel through the atmosphere.
“High temperatures can affect how radio waves move,” said Pinja Rauhamäki, a meteorologist at the institute. “When the waves reflect in a certain way, they can be heard from much farther away than usual.”
The atmospheric anomaly does not mean that radio signals inherently travel further on hot days. Rather, specific conditions, such as still air trapped between temperature layers, can bend or reflect signals in unexpected directions.
The high-pressure system over southeastern Finland has also pushed temperatures higher than seasonal averages for several days. While heatwaves commonly disrupt daily routines, this instance offered an unexpected dose of Russian radio chatter to Finnish listeners near the border.
HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
