Wetter and warmer in December than normal
A couple of extreme weather conditions contributed to a lot of local precipitation records in December, most in Western Norway, while föhn wind set the stage for a heat record in Aust-Agder.
The Meteorological Institute reports that precipitation in Norway in December was 120 per cent of the norm, while the average temperature for the whole country was 1.1 oC above the norm.
– It was notably the two extreme weathers, Aina and Birk, which contributed with heavy rainfall in western Norway,” says climate scientist at the Meteorological Institute, Jostein Mamen, to NTB.
The most precipitation in December was at the Gullfjellet measuring station in Bergen with 809.6 millimeters. By comparison, it came only 11.5 millimeters at the Nordnesfjellet in Kåfjord in Troms, which therefore was the country’s driest place in December.
The records
A monthly temperature of 1.1 oC above the normal is way down on the list. The biggest deviations in December have been 6.1 oC above the norm in 2006, and 6.4 oC below the norm in 1915. At the local level there are some more exciting numbers. In Aust-Agder there was a new county record for maximum temperature, and that was on one of the darkest days of the year. At Lyngør lighthouse in Tvedestrand, it was measured 14.4 oC on December 23.
– It is quite formidable with summer temperatures on Christmas Eve. It was a föhn wind that led to the high temperatures in southern Norway and in Telemark, says Mamen.
The warm wind (from Sahara) also made for records for Torungen lighthouse and Nelaug in Aust-Agder, as well as Jomfruland in Telemark. The warmest in the country, however, was Rekdal in Vestnes in Møre og Romsdal, where it was recorded 16.1 oC on December 19.
Nevertheless, it is a good deal behind the Norwegian record, which is at 18.3 oC, measured at Sunndalsøra on December 1, 1998.
Trickling Christmas
It was clear early on that a number of local records for December rainfall could be broken, especially in Hordaland, and several places were closely monitored at the measuring stations. at the end, Skjeggedal and Hatlestrand in Odda and Kvinnherad delivered monthly records of 356.6 and 512.1 millimeters rainfall respectively in the last month of the year. The extreme weathers mentioned before meant that several places in Western Norway and Finnmark had 200-300 per cent more precipitation than normal.
Four places in Hedmark and Oppland experienced day records on December 27, while December 23 and Christmas Eve saw new records at seven stations in Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane. None of these, however, reached the month’s highest daily precipitation; 140.1 millimeters were measured at Liarvatn in Strand in Rogaland.
© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today