Svalbard records temperature 7.4 degrees above normal for December

LongyearbyenSvalbard.Longyearbyen.PPoto: Tore Meek / Scanpix

2016 became the warmest on Svalbard in the nearly 100 years that weather records had been kept in Longyearbyen. In December, the temperature was 7.4 degrees above normal.

According to weather statistician, Bernt Lie, three of the calendar year’s twelve months set new records for monthly mean temperature in Longyearbyen.

‘December was the 73rd consecutive month that has been warmer than normal. Since December 2010, every month has been warmer than usual. That means that monthly temperatures remained well above normal’, wrote Lie on his website, Wind and Weather.

The year’s lowest temperature in 2016 was minus 18.5 degrees, and was measured on the 8th of December. As high a temperature on the coldest day hadn’t occurred since measurements at the airport had been kept from 1975, according to Bernt Lie.

2016 also set a record for rainfall. Annual precipitation was 310.0 mm, which is 63.2% more than normal (normal period 1961-1990), thus beating the rainfall record of 267.9 mm, set in 2012, by a solid margin.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today