It was a short season for Santa as parts of Iceland hit record high temperatures this past Christmas Eve. Winds originating in the tropics swept across the country, helping temperatures reach around 70 degrees in places on December 24.
Seydisfjordur on Iceland’s east coast hit a record high of 19.8 degrees Celsius (about 67.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on the eve of Christmas, The Guardian reported. This broke the previous record for Iceland, which was set on December 2, 2019, when the highest temperature reached 19.7 Celsius (about 67.5 Fahrenheit) at Öræfi, 125 miles southwest of Seyðisfjörður, as the crow flies.
“It’s incredibly warm for winter,” meteorologist Einar Sveinbjörnsson posted on Facebook, per RÚV, Iceland’s national public broadcasting service. “Another station at Seyðisfjörður, located north of the head of the fjord at Vestdalur, recorded 19.4°C. [about 66.9 F]. There is no reason to question these measurements.”
A “blowing wind” contributed to Iceland’s unusual holiday summer record, RÚV detailed. “Fountain winds represent a special type of local wind associated with mountain systems,” the National Weather Service states in an online publication. “In many mountainous regions, local winds are observed blowing over mountain ranges and down slopes on the leeward side. If the downwind air is warm and dry, it is called a blowing wind.”
Fohn winds played a role in setting a new record high for December 24 in Iceland, with warmer weather in the high northern latitudes making it easier to break the record.
Records also fell in Iceland this past spring, as temperatures in some areas were 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (about 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in May, according to The Guardian. On May 15, the temperature reached 26.6 Celsius (about 79.9 Fahrenheit) at Egilstadr Airport in East Iceland.
Individual temperature records are not the only evidence of historical trends, but the scientific consensus is that human activities have increased global average temperatures—and continue to do so. The effects of this warming include extreme weather events that can threaten lives and livelihoods.
Only part of Iceland is north of the Arctic Circle, but our warming planet is having a major impact on the Arctic as well, with effects spreading to other parts of the world. Scientists say this region is warming faster than the rest of the planet.
“In recent decades, warming in the Arctic has been faster than the rest of the world, a phenomenon known as the Arctic Warming,” concludes the 2022 study on observed warming in the Arctic since 1979.
“Many studies report that the Arctic is either twice, more than twice, or three times more than the rest of the world on average,” the authors of that study added. “[We] show, using several observational datasets covering the Arctic region, that the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world over the past 43 years, a higher proportion than is generally reported in the literature.”
The Arctic had the fifth warmest November on record, with temperatures more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit above average, according to the U.S. National Center for Environmental Information’s November Global Climate Report. At more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit above average, the period from January to November was the second warmest period on record for the region.
NOAA’s 2025 Arctic Report Card highlights several ways our warming world will affect the region, including “permafrost thaw affecting river chemistry, northward ocean heat transport reshaping Arctic marine ecosystems, and widespread warming leading to borealization of Arctic waters and landscapes.”
“Changes over the next twenty years will reshape the Arctic environment and ecosystems, affect the well-being of Arctic inhabitants, and influence the trajectory of the global climate system, on which we all depend,” the report card’s authors warned.
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