May 2012 in Iceland

On the whole the temperature was close to the long-term average of the season. Actually the month was divided into two long spells, the first a very cold one lasting from the 6th to the 19th and a warm and sunny one for the rest of the month.

The weather was unusually sunny. In Reykjavík it was the 5th sunniest May since the beginning of observations in 1911 and in Akureyri (in the north) it was the second sunniest one, the observations starting there in 1928.

During the cold spell three new daily minimum records were set for the whole country. This was on the the 7th at Setur in the central highland, -13,7°C (older record, -13,4°C), on the 17th when the temperature at Brúarjökull in the eastern inland dropped down to -16,6°C (older one -11,0°C), and on the 18th also at Brúarjökull -13,1°C (older one -11,9°C). No new daily records for the country were exceeded in the inhabited areas where the observation series are much longer than in the highland. Many daily records where, however, exceeded at the individual stations during the cold spell, and also during the following warm spell.

The highest temperature measured in Iceland in May was 22,0°C at Kollaleira in the east on the 26th. The 20deg mark was exceeded somewhere in the country on six days in a row during the warm spell. This is unusual in May.

The full report for May (in Icelandic) is available at the web of the Icelandic Met. Office.