Icelandic Climate

The Icelandic Climate is quite varying, as we experienced while being there. In one day, the weather can shift from being sunny, to snowy, to rainy, to cold, to quite warm. Because it is an island, the country experiences cold oceanic weather but is warmer than would be expected for its location due to the North Atlantic current which is also helped by the Irminger current. The island is also crossed by the polar circle which causes daylight for most of the day and night during the summer months. This is referred to as "the midnight sun". While short bursts of weather are frequent in Iceland, thunderstorms are very rare. If they do occur, it is most common in the late summer months where the temperatures are averagely in the upper sixties to mid-seventies in degrees fahrenheit. Being in Iceland, we saw all types of weather, mostly rain, which left us chilled to the bone even though it was in the mid-thirties to low-forties which was warmer than it was in the United States at the time. We also saw very high winds which caused it to seem as though it were raining horizontally. Hoods and umbrellas were quite useless.