Iceland has hottest Christmas Eve ever with temperature of 19.8C recorded | Iceland

Record temperatures of almost 20 degrees were reached in Iceland on Christmas Eve, the local meteorological office has confirmed.

Seyðisfjörður, a small town in eastern Iceland, reached 19.8C on 24 December. Average December temperatures in Iceland are between -1C and 4C.

It was a hot day overall: the temperature measured 19.7 degrees in Bakkagerði, east of Borgarfjörður in the far east of the country. The previous record was set on 2 December 2019, when the temperature was measured at 19.7°C at Kvískerjar in Öræfi in south-east Iceland.

Birgir Örn Höskuldsson, a meteorologist from the Icelandic Meteorological Office, told the RÚV news agency that the conditions for the temperature record were created because hot air of tropical origin was over the country. A strong high-pressure system was pulling warm, moist air south and preventing cooler air from entering.

Iceland is getting warmer due to global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

There was in May record-breaking heat waves Areas across the country are 3C-4C warmer than normal. May temperature records were broken in 94% of all automatic stations that have been operating for at least 20 years. The highest temperature was 26.6 degrees at Egilsstaðir Airport in East Iceland on May 15.

At the beginning of this year, mosquitoes were found in Iceland for the first time as global warming made Iceland more suitable for insects. Until then, the country was one of only two places without a mosquito population; the other was Antarctica.

Studies have shown that arctic region It’s warming four times faster than the rest of the planet, and that’s what happened in Iceland. heat record this year. Glaciers are collapsing and the country’s waters are stocked with fish from warmer southern climates, such as mackerel.