Meanwhile in Iceland. The ice cream truck is on its way!
As posted before, some parts of Iceland experienced some pretty extreme weather this year. The northern parts of the east fjords where I reckon this picture is taken is just melting out of the snow now.
Anonymous asked: Hi! I am travelling to Iceland in the spring. (Mid April/ end of May) I was wondering what the weather is like on average at this time? Still cold like winter..or? When is the switch for daylight/darkness? Also, is there a website I could look into local concerts or performances? Not sure where to look but I'd like to check some music out! Thx
The weather in Iceland is as unpredictable as the eruptions in Iceland. I’d dress roughly the same for any season, because you can get any weather at any time. It might even snow in June. This post may give you an idea of the weather at that time though. Before you go, check out Veður.is for the best weather info.
You can however predict the sunrise and sunset. The day is beginning to grow noticeably longer around that period. On the 1st of May, sunrise is at around 06:00 and sunset at 20:00 (chart).
The Reykjavik Grapevine is probably the best source for actual info on concerts and such.
I already posted two posts yesterday (post1, post2) about the storm that blew over Iceland yesterday. But there are plenty more interesting photos that have come up.
Iceland is used to experiencing some pretty extreme weather, but this was a considerably stronger storm than we are used to. There are usually several strong storms that go over the country each fall, but this one was unusual in how long it took and in that it was very strong around the whole island. Houses in Iceland are built to handle both extreme weather and earthquakes, yet there was considerable damage. Roofs were blown away, cars were blown off roads and parking lots and some people were blown away. Fortunately there were no serious injuries, but plenty of broken bones as people were swept up by the wind.
The storm was caused by a particularly sharp contrast between a high pressure area over Greenland and a low pressure zone off of Iceland’s southeast coast. The highest average wind measured in Reykjavik was 38 m/s (140kmh, 74knts, 85mph) and gusts as high as 64 m/s (230kmh, 124knts, 143mph). By comparison, Hurricane Sandy topped out at 40 m/s in the US. But the weather was actually far from being worst in Reykjavik. In the north and eastern parts of the country, strong winds were combined with heavy snowfall. The highest wind measured was 70 m/s (252kmh, 136knts, 157mph), just short of the record breaking 74,2 m/s measured in 1995.
Update: Unconfirmed data from a weather station in Iceland indicates gusts of 125 m/s.
This is a view from an office window in Reykjavik.
Rescue teams were busy tying down roofs.
Out for a walk in Reykjavik.
The weather coincided with the Iceland Airwaves music festival and since guests would have to walk this path by the sea to get to Harpan, Reykjavik’s opera house, buses were used to transport guests.
This statue in the north kept a lookout during the storm.
People in the town of Blönduós received their morning paper despite the storm. The mailman simply used his snow scooter.
Volunteer rescue workers excavate snow from a fishing boat at Skagaströnd to prevent it from tipping over.
It’s not every day that tractors are picked up by gusts of winds. This tractor was parked by a farm on the south coast.
Roofs of the outhouses at the farm of Berjanes were blown off.
The town of Egilsstaðir in the east had some of the heaviest snowfall.
Truck blown off the road, just outside Reykjavik.
A trailer parked outside a house in Reykjavik exploded in the wind.
Snow in Akureyri.
If you want to see a better overview of the storm and practice your Icelandic, try watching the TV news overview. You can even see rescue teams driving people to work in their tracked snow cats. There’s also a short video showing around town in Egilsstaðir here.
Snow buried this farm in Aðaldalur.
Snow in Reyðarfjörður.
Young Petra Sigurðardóttir helps uncover the family car in Egilsstaðir.
Cartoonist, Hugleikur Dagsson, was inspired by the weather:
Maybe you’ve seen this picture of a whale blown onto land in the Reykjavik harbor. It has been passed around the internet quite a bit. Of course it is just photoshop.
Perfect Storm in Reykjavik
I already posted a video this morning of the sea battering the Sæbraut road in Reykjavík. The ocean in this video however looks like the cgi created waves in the movie Perfect Storm.
Must be fun blowing between venues at Iceland Airwaves tonight. The rescue workers in the image are probably not on their way to a concert :)
There is quite a storm going over Iceland right now. Wind speeds are as high as 40m/s. This is the view of one of Reykjavík’s major streets from an office window.
And here’s another video from a similar location. Perfect storm?
Anonymous asked: Hi, I will be in Iceland in mid Dec and would like to know how far in advance I need to book tours? I am concerned about the weather and would like to wait as long as possible. We are interested in doing the Glacier Hike. Thank you for any advice.
A good tour is good regardless of the weather. In any case they become more memorable. Seeing waterfalls blown into the sky or pavement ripped up by wind is certainly something to tell the folks back home about. Being soaked to the bone makes that cup of hot chocolate tastier than ever. Also, Icelandic weather is very unpredictable and as Icelanders like to say, “If you don’t like the weather in Iceland, just wait fifteen minutes.”
That said you should be fine booking daytours a few days in advance. For glacier tours, you can usually book a bus tour like Take a walk on the ice side the night before or even the morning it leaves. Tours with smaller groups like the much better Walk through Ice and Fire tour may fill a few days in advance.
Have fun and hope you’ll be blown away.
Seljalandsfoss waterfall blowing in the wind
I’ve posted many pictures of Seljalandsfoss before, but you’ve never seen it like this. Yesterday it was so windy in Iceland, that the wind tore asphalt off the roads. It was also windy enough that the famous Seljalandsfoss waterfall, which you can usually walk behind, didn’t even reach the ground. The water was blown back up by the wind. We actually often see this happen with nearby smaller waterfalls, but Seljalandsfoss is much too powerful for this to happen normally.
The pictures were taken by Sólveig Pálmadóttir.
Seljalandsfoss in the wind from a distance.
You know it’s windy when the asphalt blows away
Iceland is a windy place. On a normal day, hats and umbrellas blow away. On windy days people fall over and on properly windy days the roads blow away. My friend Stefán Jóhannes took this photo of the road being torn up by the wind in Skaftafell. He had a van full of tourists, headed for the glacier, stopped to snap this photo and then the windshield blew out. Oddly enough there was almost no wind at the glacier, only a couple of kilometers away (glacier tongue in the middle of the picture).
This area is actually known for extreme wind and sandstorms. The local rescue team has an old German riot vehicle to batter against the wind in the worst conditions. The ten tonne bulletproof truck is the only thing that can power through on the most windy days in the area.
The picture I posted of a car full of snow in Iceland yesterday has been spreading around 9gag as well. As good and plausible as the story was, It turned out to be old. This picture of the door is authentic though (as authentic as viral media gets anyways) I had a look in 9gag again and there I found this picture of a doorway entirely blocked by snow. This is what happens when the wind starts blowing, it takes redistributes it like crazy, clearly packing it up against the door in this case.
There’s a saying in Iceland “If you don’t like the weather in Iceland, just wait fifteen minutes.” This often holds true, because since we are a small mountaineous island in the North Atlantic, nothing is stable. Even though we’ve had all this crazy snow in the past few days and an unusually snowy winter overall, the forecast is for up to 11°C and rain this weekend. This will cause lots of problems as all that snow melting this fast will clog up drains, filling the streets with snowmelt. Everybody will have to be careful to clear away their drains to prevent their cellars from flooding.
Here’s another pic from Reykjavík yesterday, found on 9gag.
You really haven’t experienced wind until you come to Iceland. Check out my video of my friend bodysurfing the wind.
Wind Relaxing II on Flickr.
Every time we thought to have experienced the strongest wind possible the next stop forced us to recalibrate our meters. (By the way, we won’t be complaining anymore for the wind in Berlin or Western Mass.)
Have you been looking at pictures of Iceland all day? Did you get the impression it was all nice and sunny. Think again. This photo taken by my friend Jón of his grandson during what they call a vosbúðar trip. I can’t think of a good English word for vosbúð. Vosbúð means something like cold and miserable hunger. Icelandic naturally has many words for things like that.
Being the optimists we occasionally are, when the weather gets bad we say either “Það er alltaf blessuð blíðan” (There is always the blessed good weather) or “Það fer að verða meira ferðaveðrið” (We are about to get some travel weather).
There has been an unusually cold period in Iceland for the past week or so and the country has really been living up to its name. There was quite a lot of frost around the country, and at Lake Mývatn in the north east it was -27.3°C (-17.14° F). Although not that cold, it has been quite cold in Reykjavík and Tjörnin, the pond in Reykjavík is officially safe for ice skating. Yesterday I posted a video of a morning bicycle commute in the snow in Reykjavík.
javigonbus asked: When it start snowing in Reykjavik? I love your blog :)
Thank you.
The weather in Iceland is extremely hard to predict and you can get all the year’s seasons in a single day anytime of year. There are winters during which almost no snow falls in Reykjavík and there are winters when we get a lot. Typically we’ll get the first “hausthret” or fall snow/sleet sometime in October. However it is unlikely that snow will cover the ground for more than a day or so at a time until late December. But even in the coldest month, January, the average temperature is just below freezing. This means that it can rain any day. In my experience Reykjavík rarely stays snow covered for much more than a week or so at a time.
Last year we had a couple of odd days of snow in mid June. This is very unusual, but as I said, weather in Iceland is unpredictable.
Anonymous asked: Hi! I'm a photographer planning a trip around your beautiful country for fun and not so much profit, probably in late March or April of 2012. However, I am not really a fan of freezing to death or anything like that. Do you have any advice for the completely unprepared and foreign novice hiker as far as necessary equipment for the weather or general physical preparations, if I was actually intending to hike? (in case you can't tell, this plan is in the very basic stages.)
There is no such thing as bad weather in Iceland, only improper clothing. That said, things can get a bit extreme and it is possible to literally freeze to death.
Iceland is not as cold as many might think. However, we have strong winds and plenty of rain. You should therefore get yourself familiar with layered clothing. You’ll want a good waterproof outer jacket and pants, goretex or similar. As inner layers you might choose a wool or synthetic base layer and a midweight fleece sweater in the middle. March and April can be quite cold, so a permaloft or similar jacket is very useful. Don’t skimp on the shoes. Proper hiking boots are very useful as soon as you leave Reykjavík.
There are several “foreign novice hikers” which have made not so positive headlines in recent years and I’ve spent many hours searching for them, not always with success. So be careful. Plan your trip thoroughly, get local info and always leave a detailed travel plan with a trusted contact when you leave civilization. The Icelandic Search and Rescue has created a great site about planning safe trips in Iceland.
Have fun and stay safe.
Please bring a good tent when you go to Iceland and pitch it properly. We sometimes have a little wind.
The most interesting pictures from Iceland. Photos of Reykjavík, photos of Icelandic People, pictures of Icelandic Nature and Iceland Travel.
I'm heavily affiliated with Iceland and proud of it. Lived most of my life in Iceland but spent enough time abroad to truly appreciate Iceland's uniqueness.
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