Soggy Summer in Norway

August 16, 2007
| 37 Comments

Some wonder why Scandinavians often (read always) talk about the weather. The answer is simple: Because we have a lot of it:-) Since many of my regular readers often ask or wonder about the weather, I have decided to give you some facts and figures about our climate. With its northern location, Norway is often regarded as a cold and wet country. In some aspects this is true, because we share the same latitude as Alaska, Greenland and Siberia. But compared to these areas we have a pleasant climate. Thanks to its location in the westerlies, on the east side of a vast ocean, with a huge, warm and steady ocean current near its shores, Norway has a much friendlier climate than the latitude indicates. Also it varies quite a lot from the north to the south and from the west coast to the east. So let’s concentrate of the capital in the south east, deepest in the Oslo fjord. If you like to locate it, click here on My Google Map of Oslo!

This summer I would say we’ve had kind of extreme weather with quite a lot of rain (three times as much as normal) and an average temperature in July of 16C (60F) where as last year 20C (68F). Let me summarize it all in one picture as we call it: ‘green winter’ since often a picture says more than a thousand word:





Sorry the pic here is a bit blurry, but if you click on it, you’ll have a sharper and larger picture (taken with my Nokia mobile phone of course:-). Anyway; it shows what I’ve said a while ago: Norwegian is also famed for being born with their skies on – and they never let go a chance to practice. This picture also reminds me of another saying of mine: There is no such thing as bad weather – only bad cloths – and this man shows we can dress for every occasions and loves outdoors activities!

A bit more facts as promised before i let you go for now:

Temperature in July in Oslo:
Average high: 22C (71F) – Average low: 12C (55F) – Warmest ever: 32C (90F) – Coldest ever: 5C (41F).

Looking at the whole year through, Oslo has a hemiboreal continental climate and the average temperatures are:
April – May: 4.5 to 10.8 degrees Celsius (40F to 51F)
June – August: 15.2 to 16.4 degrees Celsius (60F to 61,5F)
September – October: 6.3 to 10.8 degrees Celsius (43,3F to 51,4F)
November – March: 0.7 to –4.3 degrees Celsius (33F to 24F)

So now you understand why we always talk about the weather and also have learned how to dress for all kinds (remember; no bad weather only bad cloths!). You can’t just look at the calendar before you decide what to wear and since we love to be outdoors (winter as much as in the summertime) the first thing you hear in a house in Norway in the morning is (well after good morning and I love you and all that stuff:-): ‘What will the weather be like today?’ – and don’t blame us!
So if you wanna chit chat with a Norwegian, a good thing is to start talking about the weather – it kind of literary break the ice :D

Summer