Winter, the longest of the seasons, usually begins in Lapland in the middle of October and lasts about 200 days. Above the Arctic Circle the land is enveloped in arctic darkness or kaamos for part of the winter. During this time the sun never rises above the horizon. In the northernmost corner of Lapland the kaamos period lasts for 51 days. The complete kaamos, when the only light is a dusky blue, lasts just under a week at Luosto, from December 19 to December 25.
The snow comes to stay about two weeks after the beginning of winter and is usually thickest (60-90 centimetres on average) in around mid-March. The lakes freeze at the end of November and beginning of December. Depending on the year, Luosto gets lasting snow in November at the latest and the snow does not fully melt until well into the spring, in the first half of May.
The coldest time in winter is at the end of January, when the temperature may drop in Lapland to -45 or -50 °C. The lowest temperature recorded at any Finnish meteorological observation point in Finland in the 20th century was -51.5 °C. That was at Pokka in Kittilä in January 1999. The mean January temperature at Luosto is -14 °C.
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