Iceland getting beautiful summer weather while parts of Europe have worst summer in years

While Icelanders, and in particular us in the West Fjords, are enjoying one of the nicest summers in decades, UK and northern Europe are getting hammered by rain and cold weather. The reason for this is that the lows that normally come from America and then turn north east and come over or just south of Iceland are going much further south and almost straight across the Atlantic over to UK.

In a “normal” summer, the Atlantic jetstream directs areas of low pressure, which brings cloud and rain, to the north of UK or between Iceland and UK. High pressure systems over Europe and the Atlantic bring warm, settled conditions to the UK. This summer, the jetstream is flowing further south allowing low pressure systems to sweep straight over the centre of Britain. High pressure systems over Europe and the Atlantic have been weak.  See attached chart showing how the jetstream is acting this summer

This in turn has given quite settled weather in Iceland and all of June and July have been very dry and sunny. This has meant very nice sailing conditions in the fjords of the West Fjords. We have a seabreaze building up through the day providing 12-20 knots of steady wind all afternoon.

You´re quick to forget that on May 24th we were anchored in Lonafjordur in force 10 snowstorm and had to shovel 20 cm of fresh snow off the deck of Aurora in the morning..!!!

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The weather is also perfect for hiking in the mountains. Click on the photo to see pictures taken last Sunday from the top of a mountain above the town of Isafjordur. One shows the view looking north towards the town with the coast of Grænahlid in the distance. On the other one we are looking east over Alftarfjordur, Sauratindar and Kofri peaks with Isafjardardjup and the Drangajokull icecap in the background.