Thermal ablation of a metal surface by low-energy ultrashort laser pulses is considered theoretically. The temporal dynamics of the surface electron and lattice temperatures is studied within the framework of the two-temperature model and for different temperature dependences of the characteristics of the metal (electron-relaxation time, heat capacity, thermal conductivity). The approximation of evaporation into a vacuum is used to determine the ablation depth. Analytical expressions for the ablation-threshold fluence F-th as well as the threshold values of the lattice temperature T-th(F-th) and the characteristic time of lattice temperature decay t(d)(F-th) are obtained. This analytical description is in satisfactory agreement with particular numerical calculations.