The temperature rose to 17°C (62.6°F) at Thingvellir National Park in southwest Iceland yesterday, which is the warmest October day on record there.
A recent picture from Thingvellir. By Páll Kjartansson.
In the West Fjords the day was even warmer: 17.2°C were recorded on Gemlufallsheidi heath between Önundarfjördur and Dýrafjördur, Fréttabladid reports.
However, the all-time record was not broken. On October 1, 1973 the temperature rose to 23.5°C (74.3°F) at Dalatangi in the East Fjords.
Some people weren’t watching out for the sun and were sunburnt, such as Jens Fjalar Skaptason, chairman of the University of Iceland Student Council, who was out hiking. “I was walking around in shorts and got sunburnt. We were in absolute calm. It was fantastic,” he told Morgunbladid.
Meteorologist Teitur Arason at the Icelandic Meteorological Office explained to Fréttabladid that the fortunate position of weather systems explains the unusually warm autumn. “The weather systems arrange themselves by coincidence. […] Now it is, for example, ice cold and snowing in Finland.”
Arason said mild weather is forecast until next weekend. “But according to the current forecasts it looks as if there will be irksome instability in the weather next weekend: depressions, autumnal rains and possibly even snow in the north. Autumn weather as we know it with a bang.”
September has also been unusually warm in Iceland, causing trouble for sheep farmers.
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