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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/vestmannaeyjar-southern-region-is/harbour
very rough seas, measured at the Landeyjahöfn buoy
The day here depends on one boat, and on which mainland harbour it can use. This page shows what the instruments at those harbours are measuring right now: the wave height at the buoy off Landeyjahöfn, how high the water is standing at the quay, and the wind. These are measurements, not a forecast — the forecast for the crossing is a separate tool on this town's page.
Measured right now, not forecast
At the Landeyjahöfn buoy: very rough seas.
Waves 4,0 m. The buoy took this reading .
Readings last collected .
This page is not the authority on how deep the harbour is
The sea level shown here is how high the water is standing at the gauge. It is not how deep the channel is, and it is not how much water there is under the ferry. Landeyjahöfn's entrance is cut through sand that moves, its depth changes with the weather and with dredging, and that depth is not published live anywhere — so please do not try to work out from this page whether the ferry can get in. Vegagerðin, which owns and dredges the harbour, and the ferry company are the ones who know, and they announce it in the places below.
0,7 m ⋅ the height of the water at the gauge — not a channel depth
Wind
33 km/h — a fresh breeze, gusting 42 km/h, from the S
The harbour stations
Station
Wind
Sea level
Where it is
Reading taken
Landeyjahöfn harbour
33 km/h — a fresh breeze, gusting 42 km/h, from the S
0,7 m
On the quay at Landeyjahöfn, the mainland harbour the ferry normally uses — about 12 km north of Heimaey, across the sound.
Stórhöfði
41 km/h — a strong breeze, gusting 53 km/h, from the S
—
On the headland at the south end of Heimaey, 118 m above the sea — the island's own long-running wind station. It has no sea-level gauge, so it reports wind only.
Þorlákshöfn harbour
32 km/h — a fresh breeze, gusting 49 km/h, from the SSW
0,7 m
Why Landeyjahöfn silts up
Landeyjahöfn was built straight onto an open sand coast, fed by the outwash of glacial rivers. Sand moves along that coast and into the harbour entrance, so the entrance has to be dredged to stay usable.
When winter and spring swell is too big for the dredger to work, the depth falls below the roughly 7 metres the ferry needs. In spring 2026 the entrance depth had dropped to 1.9 metres. Nothing on this page measures that depth.
The two mainland harbours
Landeyjahöfn is about 35 minutes from Heimaey. When it cannot be used, Herjólfur sails to Þorlákshöfn instead — roughly 75 km, and two and a half to three hours each way.
That is why Þorlákshöfn's quay and its buoy are on this page too: on a reroute day, that is the water and the harbour that matter.
The numbers Vegagerðin itself counts
Residents reason with wave height, and so does the harbour authority. Vegagerðin — which owns Landeyjahöfn — publishes the figures it uses when it accounts for why sailings were missed: a mean wave height between 2.5 and 3 metres counts as a possible cause of disruption, and above 3 metres as a cause. For wind it is 13 to 16 metres a second as a possible cause, and above 16 as a cause. For the depth in the entrance it is 4 to 5 metres as a possible cause, and anything shallower than 4 metres as a cause.
Two of those three are on this page and the third is not. The buoy west of the entrance measures the wave; the stations measure the wind; the depth in the harbour mouth is not published anywhere. And these are the figures Vegagerðin uses to explain sailings after the fact, not a rule the ferry decides by — Herjólfur weighs each sailing on its own, including things nothing here measures, such as wind direction and how loaded the boat is.
Station 1176 sits on the quay at Landeyjahöfn and reports wind, gust and sea level. Station 2159 is Stórhöfði on Heimaey, high on the south headland, and reports wind only. Station 1140 is the quay at Þorlákshöfn.
Every number on this page is a measurement from an instrument, not a forecast. A sea level is the height of the water at that gauge: it is not the depth of the channel, not the clearance under a ship, and it cannot be combined with a required depth to work out whether a boat can enter. Wave words follow the Douglas sea scale and wind words the Beaufort scale; both describe the water and the air, and neither is a judgement that a crossing is safe.
Based on information provided by the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration (IRCA).
On the quay at Þorlákshöfn, the harbour the ferry runs to instead when Landeyjahöfn cannot be used — about 75 km from Heimaey.
The wave buoys
Buoy
Waves
Period
Where it is
Reading taken
the Landeyjahöfn buoy
4,0 m — very rough seas
8 s
Moored a few kilometres west of the entrance to Landeyjahöfn — the water the ferry runs through on its way in.
the Surtsey buoy
4,9 m — very rough seas
8 s
Moored near Surtsey, about 20 km south-west of Heimaey. Open ocean, and usually the first of the three to feel a swell arriving from the south.
the Þorlákshöfn buoy
3,8 m — rough seas
8 s
Moored off Þorlákshöfn, at the harbour the ferry uses when Landeyjahöfn is closed.
Sea temperature
the Þorlákshöfn buoy: 9,3°C
Buoy 14110 is moored west of the Landeyjahöfn entrance and measures wave height and wave period; buoy 14103 lies out near Surtsey and buoy 14104 off Þorlákshöfn. All of them are Vegagerðin's, and all of them read the water where they are — not where you are standing.