In the month of June, the sun has barely made an appearance in the capital city of Reykjavík. The total of sunny hours measured at only 15.4 hours in the first 11 days of June this year, an all-time low since monitoring began in 1923.
The average temperature in the city is 10.3°C or 50°F in June, one degree higher than the average temperature in June from 1949 to 2012.
A local blogger, Sigurður Þór Guðjónsson, presented an unofficial but rather curious weather study on his blog yesterday.
In his opinion, Icelanders are remarkably impatient where it comes to the definition of summer.
“People are rather impatient where it comes to the Icelandic summer. Many simply don’t realize that long sunny days are rarer than the average summer day in Iceland, during which the sun shows her face only for a few hours,” he is quoted from his blog in Morgunblaðið today.
“People tend to associate sun with summer. If the sun is shining and the air temperature is 8°C (46°F) outside, the general perception is that summer has arrived. But no one thinks of a cloudy day during which the air temperature is 18°C (64.4°F) as good summer’s day.”
The average air temperature in Akureyri so far in June is 12.3°C or 53°C, and twice already have records been broken in daytime temperature, on June 4 and again on June 6.
Akureyri on a sunny day. Photo by Páll Stefansson.
In Northeast and East Iceland the average temperature has also been a little higher than in the capital city.
In Raufarhöfn, a small town in Northeast Iceland, the average air temperature in June so far is 11.2°C (52°F), and in Egilsstaðir in East Iceland 12.0°C (53.6°F).
Related:
04.06.2013 | Heatwave in Northeast Iceland
JB
