The Weather

If you cannot find other sub­jects of conversation, you can always talk about the weather. The difference between the Faroes and so many other countries is that the weather in Faroe is actual­ly both a relevant and interesting thing to talk about.

If Vivaldi had come to the Faroes to compose “The Four Seasons”, it would only take him a day. Or so goes one of our weath­er jokes. The climate is so volatile that you really feel as if you live through all four seasons in one and the same day.

On a dark autumn morning you may scrape frost off the front car screen. The first half of the day may offer mist and rain. In the lunch break you may see people having ventured out on the front porch for a glimpse of the sun, and in the afternoon you may be blown about by gusts of autumn wind.

A low pressure is the result of the clash between cold air from the Arctic and warm air from the South Atlantic. The low pressures typically come into being off the east coast of the USA, and it starts its Atlantic crossing off New Foundland. And when it begins to move, the so called Rosby-waves in the atmosphere follow: down by the Greenland coast, south of Iceland, passing west of Ireland or Scotland and then heading north­wards again to the Faroes.

Repeatedly these whirls come along with clouds, rain and wind. They either dissolve or pass — and we again get clear skies and sunny spells. On account of our location in the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic this route of the low pressures makes sure that we in Faroe don’t have many consecutive days of frost in winter or several summer days in a row with temperatures above 15 degrees.

On the contrary we have mist, squalls and showers in all shades of grey. When the Faroes were occu­pied by Britain during WW II, they were given the well deserved nickname “The Land of Maybe”. You may plan — but you never know. Man proposes, God dispos­es. There may always come an extra low pressure making all plans made by men come to naught.